


When Most I Play The Devil

by steelneena



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Betrayal, Caleb typical Calebing, Canon-Typical Violence, Description of Animal Death, Dragons, Dream Sequences, Dreams, Eiselcross Arc, Eldritch Horrors, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Gratuitous nines, Loneliness, M/M, Molly is determined, Pain, Protective Caleb, Secret Identity, Secrets, Slow Burn Widogast but getting there, Suffering, Trust Issues, Widogast's Nascent Ninesided Tower, Yearning, desire to communicate, hard decisions, identity crisis, purposeful alienation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:34:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 69,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28676778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena
Summary: Over fifty days. Fifty long days and not a single word.He’d gone through all the different scenarios within the first week. They were just that dumb to think that a fellow who’d come up out of the ground once mightn’t do it again – and okay, admittedly, he’d had help that time, but that was beside the point. Or maybe, there was something wrong with him and they couldn’t message him like before. Or maybe, if they hadn’t all died a horrible death in Shady Creek Run fighting to get back Jester and Yasha and Fjord, they’d all died a horrible death elsewhere, their rotting corpses unburied in a dark and cold cavern somewhere unknown, lost forever.(Or maybe, whispers the darkest part of his heart every single night, the part whose voice he can’t recognize. Maybe they just don’t care.)Written for the Widomauk Winter Gift Exchange 2021
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha, Fjord/Jester Lavorre, Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast, side ships - Relationship, though it's prerelationship
Comments: 23
Kudos: 85
Collections: Widomauk Winter Gift Exchange 2021





	1. 1 | Frost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenWithABeeThrone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/gifts).



> For Effy: I hope you enjoy this, despite the fact that it is incomplete. Obviously, because I couldn’t help myself, I was a little bit held back by certain...unavoidable barriers. While I’d eat my own hat before betting on the premise of this fic becoming canon ( I would be so shaken), I’ve never once had more fun, nor more absolute dogged determination on an exchange or a prompt fic prior to this. It was an ingenious prompt and I’m so very glad I was given the opportunity and impetus to play with this taut heartstring of a concept. 
> 
> I fully intend to continue writing this, and I promise more actual widomauk content will surface when I do. We’ll see just how far I take it.  
> Prompt in the endnotes, for other readers, because you should just read and find out. It’s more fun that way.
> 
> Thank you to Meridas and Senor_Sparklefingers for the beta and support

“Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.” 

_~ André Malraux_

1 | Frost

His fingers feel like sausages. It’s an apt metaphor, no matter how unattractive. Before, he’d never known such a feeling. If someone had told him, before, that his fingers could feel like sausages under the right conditions, well, he’d never have believed them. In fact, he’d have laughed himself silly at the mental image. But it’s true nonetheless. They’re all thick feeling, full of sluggish blood. Even the joints are hard to bend and he wonders if they’ll ever be the same.

‘Wear these gloves’, they’d said. ‘It’s going to be bitterly cold,’ they’d said. ‘They’ll protect your hands’, they’d said.

Frankly, he was terrified to think what his fingers would feel like without the gloves. So, he’s mildly grateful.

In a moment, the gratefulness is gone, whisked away by the fact that they’ve shepherded him here in the first place.

Mollymauk looks out at the vast expanse of white. Everything is white. The ground is white, the clouds are white.

White. White. White.

Ultimately, he concedes, it’s better that there is cloud cover, because cloud cover means two things. Firstly, that it’s warmer. Which is a bit of a joke, considering that ‘warmer’ still means ‘bitter cold’. The second, is of course, that he’s not gone half blind from the sun’s reflection off the endless tundra. Though beautiful in his mind’s eye, sparkling like a field of diamonds or the rumored pearl shores of Elysium, his physical eyes can barely stand full-on daylight as it is, much less when it’s being reflected twofold through the snow. Which, he supposes, leads him to a third plus: here, the sun sets early, and much of their travel is through twilight, when he sees best. Four nights prior, the twilight sky had lit up with the most miraculous sight he’d ever seen; an aurora, in vibrant blues and lightning greens, the very image of dancing ribbons in the sky, just as had once been described to him. A sign of the Moonweaver’s presence.

He’d taken it to heart, praying silently and earnestly with all his might over the next several nights in hopes that She might hear him and send…well, at this rate, he’d be happy with another sign, another evening of incandescence as opposed to the velvet skirt of her night sky.

The hardest part isn’t even the oppressive cold, or the light sensitivity, or the depth of the snow through which he’s spent the past week trudging. The hardest part isn’t even that they’ve brought him here in the first place.

No, the hardest part is that they aren’t terrible. The hardest part is how they revere him. Coddle him.

How much they care.

About…

Well…

Molly hugs his arms around his chest. That morning, he’d tucked his tail up under his enormous fur lined cloak and even unbuttoned his shirt a bit to press the spade up against his chest so it wouldn’t go numb as it had for the first few days, before he’d wised up.

Teeth chattering and lips chapped, he ducks his head against the stinging bite of the wind and curses his foul luck. He’s done his fair share of that over the course of the past fifty days.

When they arrived in Balenpost, someone had cast a spell on him, and they’d set to explaining to him just why it was again, that they couldn’t show their faces, just how carefully they’d have to tread.

What would happen to him if he wasn’t careful.

They’d set about disguising one another then, in various ways, and for the first real time – which was stupid, because why hadn’t he really thought it before? (except that he had, and hadn’t liked the thoughts that came with it) – that he should simply turn around and disappear into the crowd. They hadn’t disguised him as anyone particular. No defining features. Someone who was forgettable. The opposite of himself. It wouldn’t be hard, he’d thought, to just vanish, hop back onto the ship and hide amidst the cargo just until they were cast off and the others couldn’t reach him any longer. Go back to Palebank and just…wander. Aimlessly.

Alone.

So, he hadn’t run then.

(Just like the other times.)

Alone is dangerous. Alone is bad.

Alone is…

Mollymauk swallows hard, as though doing so physically can submerge the thoughts. He’s never liked being alone, and being with them, well… it is better than being alone, even if he hates everything that it means.

And it means a lot of things that he also doesn’t like thinking about. Which makes it difficult to think about anything other than his own, miserable sausage fingers and undesirably low internal body temperature. The only solace is nights by the fire, when he can stare into the flames as they dance, look deep within and lose himself for hours on end.

At first, back when they’d brought him up out of the ground, he’d played along, but it had become increasingly clear that his level of bullshitability wasn’t up to snuff, and he’d not so much admitted to not being Lucien, as he’d suggested that there were simply…gaps in his memory that needed some filling in. Much to his surprise, they’d bought that much. It wasn’t, he’d noted, his personality that threw them, but simply his limited knowledge on things about which he was supposedly meant to be an expert. Including some Book, which in itself presented a rather particular obstacle.

(He thinks that they’re more worried about him than disappointed. Whatever Tyffial had tried to do to him in Shady Creek Run hadn’t worked. No memories came rushing back, no Lucien, though he’s still pretending, best as he can. It’s a boon really, that they think it didn’t work the way it ought to have done. Means his lapses have an explanation that’s readily acceptable. He tries to focus on that most, so that he doesn’t have to contemplate what it means that he is apparently good enough at pretending to be someone he can’t recall having been for the life of him. Second life. Third? More? He doesn’t want to know.)

None of them bother him when he stares into the flames. It’s as if they think he’s considering important, vaulted matters of the Metaphysic and Transmundane, like he’s some sort of wizard or something wild like that, which he decidedly is not. He has a wizar- had a wizard to fulfill wizardly needs like looking pretty and skimming off the top and pretending to be small and insignificant and powerless when in reality it had been sooo obvious that he was anything but those things.

And that’s another thing Molly tries not to think about.

The other them.

The Mighty Nein.

His…friends.

Over fifty days. Fifty long days and not a single word.

He’d gone through all the different scenarios within the first week. They were just that dumb to think that a fellow who’d come up out of the ground once mightn’t do it again – and okay, admittedly, he’d had help that time, but that was beside the point. Or maybe, there was something wrong with him and they couldn’t message him like before. Or maybe, if they hadn’t all died a horrible death in Shady Creek Run fighting to get back Jester and Yasha and Fjord, they’d all died a horrible death elsewhere, their rotting corpses unburied in a dark and cold cavern somewhere unknown, lost forever.

(Or maybe, whispers the darkest part of his heart every single night, the part whose voice he can’t recognize. Maybe they just don’t care.)

The only thing that keeps him from believing that particular route is the innate knowledge that Yasha is alive. That he would know if Yasha were dead. He just would.

Most nights, that thought is all that keeps him going.

Today, in the grey light of half noon, up to his waist in the snow, he clings to it like nothing else in the world can sustain him, the last morsel fed to a starving man. Something gnaws its vicious teeth at his innards, but its name is not hunger. No, it’s far more ravenous than that beast. Its desires more existential than food and drink. Will go to just as wildly vicious lengths to get what it wants. It’s a visceral, animal response, fight or flight, and to be bound between them by inaction is tearing him apart.

Part of him wonders what they would do if he turned to them and ordered they all quit the present course, that whatever information they believed he had was changed, and their course anew. Somehow, he believes they might actually listen to him, but the fear, that other warring beast, gnashes at him, hissing and spitting, confining him to this wretched corner of the world. That were he to reveal the truth of himself, it might just be the end of him altogether.

Whatever it is driving him, its whiplashes will not let up until he stands at the precipice. He’s resigned himself to it, there in the snow and the wind and the wild white.

He’s quite close to the head of the pack. Only Cree walks ahead of him, and even then, he sometimes feels as if he doesn’t really need her to guide him along. It was that realization that made the desperation ratchet up several notches the day before. That somehow, in the middle of monochrome nothingness, he knew the way.

And whatever it is that they’re seeking, however close they’re drawing to its presence, Molly can sense somehow that it’s bad.

World ending, dimension tearing, nightmare inducing bad.

Not that he’s had a single dream at all since he woke with dirt still clinging to his clothes. No, his nights are not fraught with demons, or unwanted memories. Neither nonsensical topsy-turvies, nor any of sexual manifest. Nothing. Just vast, unsettling emptiness.

Somehow, it’s more worrisome than if he had been having nightmares of some kind. But the only nightmare is the one he’s living.

Actually hungry - grateful for the distraction - and starting to wonder if they’re going to break for food today, or keep walking while they eat, Molly’s just about to open his mouth to suggest they do just such a thing when he feels…something. It’s a sensation, a little like a ghostly tingling up his spine, like something is watching him, or someone, and then, something new happens.

Red light glows on his cheek, flares, flashes, winks out.

“Lucien?”

Stopped dead in his tracks, all Lucien’s fellows about him, Molly blinks.

“Nonagon, what is it?”

A tiny little ball of light hovers about three feet out and two feet above him, looking down unwaveringly.

Scrying. Someone is scrying on me, he thinks, brow furrowing. It’s innate, this knowledge like so many other of his abilities. He doesn’t know how he knows. He just does. Who, is unknown, but it suddenly occurs to him that this is the best possible opportunity, or the worst. Anyone could be watching him, anyone at all. Lucien had made a lot of enemies, that much he’d figured out if only by their avoidance of Rexxentrum and their arrival in Balenpost. (And the night in the run. That long ago night when he was weak, trembling too much to even lift his own head. That long ago night when the assassin crept into his chambers, poison dipped dagger poised to slay, to rend and tear and gouge. That long ago night when, in fear, panic, terror, he’d blinked and- blood. So much blood. He’d done that. He’d done that. He had-)

Molly knows he could be very well inviting his own demise, end up a splatter on the snow for something that rat bastard Lucien had done, and not him. Because there are surely more powerful people out there, gunning for Lucien. And they’re not going to let him explain if they’ve a chance to kill him instead.

So it’s a risk. Regardless, Molly decides to take advantage of it.

“Nothing to worry about. Let’s stop.” He cocks his head, grins. It’s too easy to wear his confidence. They like it best when he’s smiling, when he drives them forward with zeal. “Eat something. For the journey. Nearly there now.” He doesn’t know how near or how far they are, but it feels like the right thing to say, so he says it.

Cree’s tail swishes in violent little wisps. Funny enough, she’s easy for him to read – tail language it seems is the same between Tabaxi and Tieflings. She’s anxious. Concerned. Molly narrows his eyes at her and she looks away a little too quickly. (And there’s something too, they love him, and fear him. And that, he finally understands, is the price of power.) A week ago, maybe she’d gone quiet in the middle of a conversation she’d been having with Tyffial. He’d noticed her glance sharply at him then, but had pretended that nothing was amiss when he’d questioned her.

Maybe someone had been scrying before. Maybe this was just the first he’d noticed. If that’s the case, certainly turnabout is fair play.

But Cree has never fought him. He doesn’t think she has it in her to do so. Maybe the reason they cleave to him when he feels so obviously transparent, is because they just wish that badly that he is all of who they want him to be. And if she would never have questioned him, well, then she would never question Molly either.

“You are right.” It’s all the answer she gives, but it’s enough that he wants to. His say is final. His words implicit.

The scrying eye is still there, watching him. What does he do? What should he say? How to turn this to his advantage?

(What if the scryer isn’t someone he wants to invite to find him?)

When Cree’s back turns, when the others aren’t looking, he does the only thing that he can think of. Molly sticks out his forked tongue, right there and then, and gives the scrying eye the double bird as subtly as he can. Which, for the record, isn’t something he thinks Lucien would do willy-nilly. And then, just to be on the safe side, he mouths without speaking ‘come and get me, ya bastard!’ before turning around to join the rest in hopes that they won’t ask him any further questions, or to explain his reasoning.

Settling in by the fire that Otis has kindled, Molly shoves his hands right up close, the heat prickling through the numb digits. Conversations fill the empty air around him, but he doesn’t participate and they don’t ask him to.

Now, all there is left to do is wait.

He doesn’t have to wait long. Mornings are as pitch black as evenings, here, as desolate and unforgiving as ever. There is never anything pleasant about mornings, because at least in sleep, he tends not to consciously know how cold he is. Waking puts that in sharp relief. But the fire is still going, if low, and he sidles up to it, the only one roused. He’s gnawing on some jerky when he feels the same tingling against his neck, sees the flash of light beneath his eye illuminate the dark space.

There is the orb once again. Watching him.

His eyes dart around quickly; the Tomb Takers still rest, if fitfully. “Alright whoever you are,” he whispers low. “Listen careful and listen close. You want me? Come and get me. If you can make it to our destination...well, I’ll be right impressed. Dress warm. Wouldn’t want you to catch a chill.”

It’s somewhere between aggressive and inviting, between childish and malicious, which is exactly where he wants it to be. It keeps him unpredictable, just in case the people watching aren’t people he wants watching him. Just in case they’re worse than the Tomb Takers. Just in case, so he hopefully doesn’t end up regretting it later.

“Bet you didn’t think I’d know you were there, did you?” he says when the scry doesn’t wink out of existence. “Bet you thought you were being all sneaky-like. Well, the surprise is on you. I’m sharp, friend. I’d like to see you get one over on me. So come out to play, won’t you? I’d love to get to know my secret admirer-”

Abruptly, the eye winks out of existence.

Well, his hand is played, and now he simply has to wait and see if whoever is on the other end will call his bluff.

Eventually, the sun rises, and the Tomb Takers along with it. They greet Molly cordially enough, everyone sharing in a meal and he rallies against the camaraderie he feels for people who don’t know him and don’t care about him. It’s not fair that they don’t meet with his expectations. Not fair that they’re decent... if a little…intense. It makes him feel bad, and that in turn angers him more than anything. He shouldn’t have to feel bad. They’re not his friends and it is not his fault that Lucien got himself killed, that Lucien ended up dead. That they buried him and someone else rose in his place. It’s not his fault and he shouldn’t feel bad because it's his body now and his life.

He’s made it his own through ink and scar and decoration, through blood and heart, joy and fright. Two years and fifty some days belong to him now, and not Lucien.

Yet, somehow, Lucien still seems to take and take.

Just like Lucien’s friends had taken Molly.

(Not like he’d had anywhere else to go.)

Moonweaver, he thinks as hard as he can. Please, let whoever is scrying on me be useful. Please let them shake things up.

Please, and if he weren’t surrounded by people who can hardly bear to take their eyes off him, he thinks he would resort to tears. Please, give me the strength to break free. Please. I beg you.

Even though a response is unlikely, he listens for one anyways.

None arrives.

Days later, no scrying eye has come to pry on him again and his hope dwindled. They passed a group of Yeti without issue; though they’d been approached, it had almost been as though they were frightened away, staring at Molly, who stood his ground back, and yowling unhappily in their language of choice. Beyond that, there has been almost no life, no obstacles save the snow and the wind and the cold.

On the final day - Molly knows it’s the final day because there, cresting the horizon, rising up out of the snow like gargantuan ice frosted crystals are the ruins of some long abandoned citadel - Molly feels the eye again, sees it watching him, but it fades without his being able to make any indication of his notice of it. Beneath the ancient ice, glazed and shining, Molly can feel, like a heartbeat beneath the ribs, the thrumming of an unknown power; it matches the time of his own pulse, or rather, his pulse matches to it. The trek has been hard, but this day is the most difficult. At midday, when the sun is still high and he sweats beneath the protection of his warm leathers and furs, he first starts to feel uneasy. It’s hard to describe, even to himself. He doesn’t feel ill. Just...more. Like he’s been struck by lightning. The more he thinks about it, it reminds him of when Caleb had used magic to give him extra haste to his step; though he moves no faster, he still feels the charge of the power within him, power that seeps up from under the ground, seeps up and surges into him as if drawn directly to him. The soles of his feet tingle with it, electric up through the muscles in his legs.

The invisible force pulls at him more and more firmly, drawing him forward and pulling him down simultaneously. His legs move of their own will, and he feels oxymoronically sluggish though his limbs are energized. He’s ahead before he knows it, the rest of the Tomb Takers lagging behind, even Cree.

As he draws ever closer to Aeor, the sensations grow ever stronger and he simply wants to stop, to freeze solid, one more corpse turned immortalized statue of ice, to remain a forever-warning to those who venture too near to things unknown and terrible.

So driven to distraction is he, that Molly misses the drop of the sun beneath the horizon. Low light only speeds up his strides, no longer squinting in the sun, and by the last dregs of blue twilight, they stand at the entryway to the collapsed structure. The Tomb Takers crowd around him. Smiles and eyes gleam in the relative darkness - it’s not malicious, so much as joy. Relief, even, but so intense its frightening. Molly almost pities them, were he not so busy pitying himself more. Their dreams, whatever they are, are forged in a fraud, their hopes rooted in a con-artist carney whose tongue isn’t even so much silver as burnished brass, who grows less and less certain that he’s stolen the body he wears at all.

Who grows less and less certain that he’s the one running the con, not the one being conned.

It’s too late. It feels too late. Too late for whatever hope he’d placed in the scry to follow through. Here, at the end of the world, standing small as a mouse before the mammoth monument to some dark entity, some ancient, unknowable power that calls to him, that resonates in his very blood, Molly’s hope runs out.

If Yasha were alive, she’d have come for him by now.

If Yasha were alive, she’d never have left him to face his worst nightmare alone. She’d have stood beside him, fought tooth and nail to untether him from the force which binds him so surely, tugs insistently at his will. Whatever he has invited to come find him will not fulfill those hopes he held most secretly in his heart.

Loosening his whip-tight grip, Molly lets the hopes fade away. There’s no point in holding on anymore. There’s just one path left.

Down, his pulse thrums. Within. Below.

The Key.

Awaken. Awaken. Awaken.

“Lucien?” Cree’s paw lands tentatively on his shoulder. Only then does he realize that he’s been shaking.

The voice whispering in his head is one he doesn’t want to hear.

“Let’s leave,” Molly tells his mouth to say. Tinny, poorly pitched little bells ring in his ears. He can hardly hear himself speak. “Let’s go,” is what comes out.

They press within the maw of the leviathan, pitch blackness like the void, and A5 swallows them down whole.

Into the belly of the beast.

The path winds, narrowing. It’s colder than ever inside, the stone walls trapping the frigid air. Only the bitter wind is interrupted by their descent within. Single file, they follow him down, legs like led falling orderly one in front of the other. Their footsteps do not echo - snowdrifts make up the floor, as the structure is obviously sunken into the ground. It’s a steep incline, though short before the path begins to widen again and light starts to flicker in the black of the tunnel. Instinctually, he pauses.

Cree comes up beside him.

“I will look.” Her voice is soft, so soft he almost misses her words entirely, but he allows her to shush past him in the passage. Like a cloud drifting through the sky she pads with equal grace and silence around the bend. Molly’s breath catches. He doesn’t know why, exactly, he chooses that moment to panic, but he does. It’s compounded by the skit of metal and a shout. There’s a clash and a gurgle and then Cree’s silhouette appears in the entryway, only the shine of her cat’s eyes glimmering in the darkness. “Dynasty agents. We must hurry. More are already ahead of us. If they reach the chamber before us…”

Urgency that doesn’t belong to him poisons his veins with adrenaline and they start forward again, though now Cree walks just a little ahead of him. If this is usual, Molly doesn’t know, but he doesn’t think the Tomb Takers care anymore. They’ve come too far, have grown too close, and now, on the edge of final success, the threat that it might be stolen right out from under them makes them less inclined to notice his slip ups, whatever they might be. As they pass the slaughtered drow, his blood splattered over the floor, Tyffial kneels down to loot quickly before they move on. Funds have been tight since they brought him back, that much Molly knows intimately well. He dismisses the coppery scent in the air, the way it makes his tail twitch, his shoulders tighten. Feels nothing at the sight.

It's just a corpse.

It doesn’t matter.

They waste no further time and continue deeper in the ruins. Deeper, steeper, slipperier all. Then, comes the tunnel. It’s no great hardship, squeezing through, but the room that opens up before Molly stirs his imagination.

Never in all his short life has he seen anything so breathtaking.

Against his better judgement, Molly finds it beautiful. Awe inspiring. Utterly mesmerizing. It’s clear that the room in which he stands is tipped on its side, fallen from some incredible height, the contents that remain shattered by impact over the ground and preserved timelessly by the ice and snow. Alone, the size is impressive, but it's really the scribe work that is truly awe inspiring. Arcane words scroll over everything in twisting, impressive designs. But it’s not like any arcane scrollwork Molly’s ever seen before. Any sigils that Caleb had performed - the only source of the limited arcane familiarity Molly had - were not like this. Not nearly as impressive, but also, somehow, more refined than what covered the fifty foot high ceiling-floors.

Cold blue light streams in through the archway in the wall-ceiling, and the motes that swirl through the air are not dust motes, but the gently drifting swirls of snow that fall through somewhere. The world here is not only frozen physically, but also frozen in time, unaltered in the many, many eons since its destruction.

Molly heaves out a breath, enthralled and overwhelmed by the ruined grandeur. The heat of his exhale curls like smoke through the air, but hangs there, stagnant. When he breathes in again, the air is so chilled, he can feel frost in his lungs. The whole chamber is still like death. A tomb of knowledge and secrets, of desires and death. An axiom of life, its antithesis crystalized.

Terror strikes Molly’s heart, something existential, something beyond time and memory. It roots him to the spot, and he stands there while the rest of them drop down around him, fanning out in the chamber comfortably. Whatever awe settles over him is lost on them.

For once, it serves as a reassurance; for all he may doubt his identity, surely, if he were Lucien, he’d have remembered the sleeping splendour of this unforgettable sight.

“Nonagon?”

That’s practically the most common thing they do - query him by one or the other name. Molly, he repeats in his mind, firmly - desperation is temporarily dispelled by his surroundings. He feels detached, adrift, outside himself. If he could but hear his own name, just once aloud, in someone else’s voice… I’m Molly. Mollymauk Tealeaf. I am, I am.

“Nonagon, do you sense something?”

The honourific - he’s not sure which he despises more. It, or Lucien – chafes him into movement, spurns him on. Finally breathing again, dispelling clusters of ice clinging in his lungs, Molly takes one step forward. Two. Three. Determination, purposeful. With intent.

No one is coming to save him. Why run?

They cross the dimensions of the room and climb up onto the ledge that is really the grand entryway into the chamber beyond. The first thing Molly notices is the chill – it’s deep set, the kind that suffuses the breathability from air altogether, stealing breath and freezing eyelids, creaking joints and hunching shoulders. The second thing he notices is that this chamber is also rotated at a strange angle – it lays on a different face than the room in which they stand. Enormous icicles hang from the ceiling, long jagged teeth, and a soft blue-white glow envelops the space eerily. It isn’t the same as the natural light that filters through the cracks in the stone ceilings, letting snow drift through, no, this is different. Preternaturally, he can sense it, holds up his hands to stop anyone from moving forward. It’s a reflex action, nothing more, nothing less. All his senses are primed; his ears and tail twitch, his eyes dart, his muscles tense.

Zoran takes a cautious step out towards the slanted decline of the wall that serves as a ramp before reaching out their hands and sending fire streaking towards the braziers at the base of the room. They flare up instantly and the arcane glow in the room suffuses as the doors shudder open across the way. One by one, Zoran grabs them and dimension doors over to the other side. Lucien stands aside, waiting and watching. Little globules of icy matter drift down towards the braziers, shrieking as they implode at the contrary heat that they so desperately seek, finding themselves destroyed in the process.

He’s the last one to cross, patiently, Zoran waits for him to take their hand, which he does after one final moment’s inspection of the space over which they are about to skip. Instantaneously, they land on the other side, bypassing whatever trap…or well…pitfall…had awaited them.

The rest crowd by the doors and Molly wonders for a moment why they haven’t gone in, that is, until he sees what awaits beyond. Whatever room was in the interior is no more, the floor having given out. All that remains in an endless abyss-like pit. It’s Otis who casts the spells next, and they all fly down without issue, silent for forever as they drift down, down, down.

Down, beneath the ground.

Born, Live, Die, Rise, Live, Die, Rise, Live, Descend.

Molly can feel the dirt cloying in his throat, takes a shuddering breath to stifle the gag reflex and pushes ahead further, deeper down.

The space in which they alight is littered with the shattered remnants of stone floor and other broken baubles. Whatever it is that tugs at him leads Molly to a partially hidden crevasse in the wall through which he passes. It opens to a hall, stone, and mostly clear of snow, though ice still clings in whirling fractals to the stonework walls.

A sound catches his ear, and he jolts to the ready, primed for a fight with whatever terribly aberration might guard the passage ahead. But instead, all that appears in a drow guard, whose eyes widen at first contact, before he whips forth a sword. Instantly, Molly’s slinging his own from where they hang at his hips. It’s kill or be killed, because this fellow doesn’t look like he came here to talk about splitting the find, as it were, and just because he’s lost whatever hope he had left does not mean he’s ready to die. Not in the least.

Muscles mostly unused strain and tense as he uncoils in a fury of attacks, blocking and parrying. What tricks he has he keeps for later – this is a guard, which means that there are inevitably more, and more powerful at that, who will likely be even less inclined to talk if he succeeds in taking out the fellow who is currently slicing at him. The Tomb Takers come in behind him just as he strikes a killing blow, stabbing through the gut before finishing the fellow off with the other sword, carving through his arm at the shoulder.

When Molly comes out of it, he can barely recall the flurry of motions through which he’d instinctively worked. Panting, he turns his head to look over his shoulder at the Tomb Takers where the circle behind him.

“There’s bound to be more inside. We can’t let them get what we came here for. Go,” he says, however unnecessarily. “Get the door open.”

He bends down, trying to appear intent on searching the fellow – and to be honest, it’s not that hard, because he is curious – while he catches his breath and chokes back a sob of…of…

Who was it that guided his feet, his hands, that knew so well how to land strikes, to avoid them? Who was it who held those swords with his hands? Who was it who smiled at the scent of blood in the air? Who was it who relished the spray of ichor across his face, on his lips, in his mouth? Who feels nothing in the slaughter?

Not Mollymauk.

As he rifles through the drow’s armor, his hands start to shake and he draws them back into tight fists to stem the growing tremor before diving back in. From around the drow’s neck, he pulls a shining medallion and stuffs it into the pocket of his coat along with the coin purse and a few nice looking daggers with silver filigree wrought into the handles.

By the time he stands again they’re at the door, pressing spells into the arcane lock. Tyffial turns to him, eyes shining bright, intense, vicious. Molly’s spine straightens, unsettled.

“One step closer, now.” 

Molly hears, tries not to listen. Fails. Licks blood spray off his lip and nods, eyes narrowing. One step closer to what? He doesn’t know. “Till homeward bound we be,” he says, though he’s not sure why. “Open the door.”

At his command, Tyffial releases the spell and the door shudders upward to reveal the chamber beyond.

Light streams from within. Bright blue light mixed with the warm golden glow of a fire. The sound of the door loses them their surprise. Against the grinding of steel on stone is the snikt of weapons being drawn. The sound of Undercommon – unintelligible to Molly’s ears, though recognizable – echoes across the space with notes of growing alarm. All eyes fall on Molly and he sucks a breath in through his nose before drawing his swords. “Well, now, I don’t suppose either of us would be willing to share?”

You don’t have to do this. You don’t. You can run. Run and freeze and die, but you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to be a part of it.

The first spell lands just to the left of his head. Molly sidesteps it without a thought.

Fight and live.

Run and die.

(Fight and live, but give up who you are in the process.)

But it's far too late for that. Already, they’re rushing up the stairs, slinging spells and brandishing weapons and there’s no choice left but to fight back.

Like the swell of a wave, they crash together, two lines of defense, but this time, Molly wrests control from his instincts, blocking and parrying more than jabbing and slicing. And if that means he himself is jabbed and sliced more than usual…well… This is a choice he can make. They’ll die – every last one – that much is unavoidable. But at least he won’t have done the doing. The woman leading them, a drow with long silver hair and crystalline blue eyes, rushes him too suddenly for him to spin out of the parry he holds with her compatriot. Swinging one hand out, he drops the second scimitar and claws the air in her direction. Something pops. Warm blood cascades down his cheek, met with a spray from the arterial cut he lands in his moment’s indiscretion. Her companion falls and she screams, rushing him again, but he easily brushes aside her rash attack. Before he knows what’s happened, he’s got her by the throat, holding her in his space. Terrible noises wrench from her throat that coil in his stomach like poison.

Stop! Stop! Stop!

His grip eases. That’s all the opening she needs.

The blade slides slick into his side, just left of center, much less terrible than it could be; all these things he catalogues in a haze, lifting his sword arm to defend the oncoming strike while scrabbling in the grit among broken shards of stone for the other scimitar. Somewhere in the back of his brain, Molly acknowledges that he can hear the door opening once again, but with the slick taste of blood in his mouth and the fire in his side, the icy chill at his back where he’s fallen and the gleam of the sword as she brings it down, its unimportant. Above him the woman snarls and he only grins because Cree looms behind her. Gleaming bright steel pierces up through her chest and Molly takes the opportunity to finish her off with a slice. Lifeless, the woman falls to the ground beside him, head hitting with a sickening crack.

Cree helps him stand. He’s swaying on his feet, but doesn’t allow her to prop him up. Feeling a little vindictive, he spits a gob of blood out across the drow’s boots. He’s died and died and died again, but she won’t be the next one to put him in the ground.

Behind him, from the great door, there’s a screech. A yowl almost, of keen frustration and he turns, perturbed. On the higher platform stands a half-elf woman, face contorted in fury, her gaze locked on him. “YOU!”

Something about her is familiar, makes him want to gnash his teeth; her face is foul, her very presence makes his gut churn uneasily, and his heart pounds with an unknown fury, but Molly still can’t quite place her. There’s a clattering, more people coming up the ancient hall to stand with her, but he can’t worry about that now. What will come, will come. Beside him, Cree hisses.

“Here Nonagon! Your vengeance is at hand! Finish the false one! The pretender! She’s no match for you anymore!” The bells starts ringing alarum between his ears once more, the clatter of battle falling away until there is only his pulse and hers, only alien fury and overwhelming rage.

The half-elf stands forward. Across her body red lights begin to ripple and grow. “I killed you once, I’ll kill you again!”

The thrumming in his veins sings, high pitched and screaming. NONAGON.

“Kill her, Lucien!” Cree hisses again, but she sounds far, far away. “What are you waiting for? Take back what is yours!”

NONAGON.

He stops resisting. Hasn’t the willpower to try. Her hand reaches out towards him, but he moves faster, preternaturally quick, as though the world is slowing around him, instead of him speeding up. It is but the space of a moment, no conscious thought necessary to do it. Something else takes over, then. Animal instinct? Fear? Righteous burning fury?

It doesn’t matter. The eyes on his hand begin to glow, the light blossoming under his cheek. Each red eye flashes bright across his body and the half-elf woman staggers, falters, her hand falling, the red eyes’ light scattered across her body fading. Hand clawed in the air, power flowing from him, Molly steps forward, a new strength alight in his veins.

The last time - the last time it was over in a split second. The last time, it was over before he’d even realized what he’d done. But now, he feels as though an age passes for each step forward he takes, for each desperate pumping of her heart that he senses. Fear floods her eyes, disbelief, and he feels an absent thrill at it; still his stomach roils but still the power channels through him, unbidden, unstoppable.

He knows her. He knows her. Knows her in his bones, knows the scar of her magic rending through his soul. If he knows nothing else, he knows this. Whoever this woman is, she hurt him so completely his soul is still bleeding because of it. The stranger in his bones is whispering again. He wants her to suffer. He wants her to die. He wants Molly to do it.

Fingers locking in place, muscles trembling, will crumbling, Molly gives in.

From her lips erupts a wail, chilling to the bone. Blood bursts from her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, all at once and he’s flung back, back to Shady Creek Run, back to that first night, and another shriek of contorting terror as he’d protected himself in a way he still doesn’t understand, still can’t control, never ever wants to use again.

(He’s the one screaming, though no ears can hear it.)

On the platform above him, the woman collapses into a heap.

Hand on his side, blood weeping through his fingers, Molly struggles to keep his footing, utterly drained. Whatever power sings in his veins sleeps now, the voice quieted, placated. Resignedly, he waits. It doesn’t matter. He won’t make it through another fight like that. Whatever reinforcements she has brought with her, he wishes them gods-speed against the Tomb Takers. This should be the biggest hint that he’s not who they think. They don’t break a sweat and even when he’s not being unnecessarily reckless, he can’t quite hold his own by comparison.

They will reign hell down through that doorway, and he’ll find a modicum of peace. The other self is sated on the blood of their murderer, and Molly’s conscience cannot take any further casualties. He waits, watching the doorway, feeling himself grow weaker and weaker.

What he sees is the last thing he expects. What he sees – the product of delirium? Blood loss? Desperation? Shuddering as his heart speeds his debilitation, the dull thudding ushering more and more of his lifeforce away, Molly manages a blood-flecked smile. “A little bit late to the party, aren’t we?”

He’s not lucid long enough to hear the response, but the last thing he sees as he feels his knees buckle, his vision cloud over, his heart slow, are the widening eyes and shocked expressions of the Mighty Nein. Like visions from a dream, they look down on him, a blessed gift from his beloved Moonweaver to take him home and away to her unearthly palace of slumbering souls. Maybe there, he too can finally rest.

There is no rest for the wicked, and he has been wicked, he knows, even if he can’t recall how or when.

Red Eyes stare at him from out of the swirling ether, dark, though with an effervescent glow in purples, blacks, greens, and blues. The Eyes glare brightly in this contrast; even when compared to the emptiness, they appear enormous, and only growing, pushing effortlessly forward through the void until they fill his vision completely. Terror grips him. He feels their will exert upon him, dominating his own with frightening ease. Already weak, his body exhausted as his mind, he waits, transfixed. Still and silent, heart shaking like a rabbit in the jaws of a moorbounder kitten, waiting to be played with before being mercifully devoured, he feels the pressure of the eyes, hears the title in his head.

NONAGON.

Impossibly small, helpless, alone, Mollymauk weeps. He never wanted any of it, and here, now, he bears the burden of Lucien’s consequences.

Unblinking, the eyes stare down at him, and he cannot look away, cannot shut his eyes.

The boundless astral sea blossoms before him, a riot of colour and light and moonstone dust, siphoning in whorls towards the eyes, from which the blackness of total nothing seeps, and exchange of properties. He’s sobbing now, begging without words to be released, crying out to the Moonweaver to pry him away from this fate that does not bear his name.

Mollymauk, my name is Mollymauk.

And when at last he feels he will be consumed, the vision fades and he hears another’s name urgently in his ears. “Lucien! Lucien, come back to us. Come back to us.”

He does not startle. Rather, he feels pulled to the surface after holding his breath too long. No coppery taste lingers on his tongue, no throbbing headache splits his skull. Groaning, pain – though dulled – still lancing up his side, Molly stirs. It takes a moment for his vision to focus, for him to realize that his eyes have been open the entire time. There, above him, is Cree, her green eyes piercing into him.

“Cree.” The surroundings are unfamiliar. Nothing so vibrant and warm exists in the ruins of fallen Aeor, of that much Molly is certain. The light is golden and the space is warm. No longer does he wear the heavy leathers of weeks past. He is clad now in only the black trousers he wore before their trek north, and the white silken shirt, stained as it now is with blood, both his own and others.

(They’d brought him new clothes after what happened in Shady Creek Run, placating and apologetic, that they would leave him so unprotected and in such a vulnerable state. A ‘healing soul’, Tyffial had called him then. Only now does he think he understands.)

“Where-“

“Shhh, Nonagon. We are in a Wizard’s tower. The other one… his friends are here.”

Me, he thinks. I’m the other one. You’ve got it all wrong.

And then her words hit him. Friends. It hadn’t been a dream then. “Ah. I see.” They did come for him then. Somehow, someway, they’d come for him, accompanied by the woman who had...killed him? Created him? Both? Thinking about it is the last thing he wants to do.

No, the Nein should be his focus. His heart hurts with it, a good and terrible kind of pain; he’d disparaged them for leaving him behind, given up, given in. (I killed that woman. Slaughtered her like a suckling pig. Blood everywhere, thin and watery, like wet paint.) All for nothing. (She would have killed you, the voice whispers back in contradiction.)

“A Wizard’s tower?” he asks, pushing back the waves of recollection, the scent of gore. Caleb’s face sparks in his memory, warm and living, shy and wary. He sits up from where he’s been laid – on a divan of some sort – and takes in the utter magnificent opulence of his surroundings. Molly can hardly believe it to look at it.

The room in which he lays is indescribable. Across from him is the fireplace. It’s the first thing he sees, really, eyes drawn to the flickering of the flame. A mural in stained glass tile is inset above it, mimicking the patterns of his beloved and long lost coat. To all rights, it ought to be a dream. Because they’re in Eiselcross and there are no such rooms as this, personally constructed to emulate his tastes. Because he’s lying somewhere, crumpled in an ancient ruin, bleeding out while the Tomb Takers fight whatever forces came to aid their fallen comrade.

Because it’s almost too impossible to believe. That if this is indeed Caleb’s tower, that Caleb then had made his tower so, chosen to. Except that if it were a dream, Cree wouldn’t have been the one by his side when he woke up.

The scry…

Briefly the memory returns to him, of the Nein standing on the upper tier of the chamber in which he’d fought and fallen, slaughtered and nearly been slain. The Nein looking down on him. In his memory, their visages are hazy, bundled as they were for the clime, and time having passed as it has. The Caleb that lives preserved beside Yasha as he knew her and all the rest… that Caleb was only just coming out of his shell.

For the first time, Mollymauk considers that things might not go the way he’s imagined it would. They’d see him and he would rush forward, but Yasha would stare at him with a blank look, Beau would step back in disgust. Fjord would pull his weapon and Jester would accuse him of the worst crime of all.

You’re not Mollymauk. I know Mollymauk, and you’re not him.

And Nott and Caleb would be there too, aloof and apart, glaring at him nervously.

No, for all his fears that he would no longer be recognizably himself, Molly now finds himself worrying that it is he who will not recognize them. That he’s been so afraid of losing himself that he’s remained the same, and they?

They have moved on without him.

For a moment tries to imagine Yasha as a stranger. His lungs tight in abhorrence of the thought. No, she, of all, could never be a stranger to him. But the rest?

Immediately, the urge to fly to the door, to search every nook and cranny of his unfamiliar surroundings for someone anyone he knows hits him like a brick to the chest. But the urge and the reality are not destined to meet. Wincing, he sits up gingerly.

“Your wounds are healing?” Cree asks. Not for the first time, he wishes that the concern in her voice was for him and not Lucien.

“Mostly,” he grits out. He puts a hand to his side, palpating it a little. Pain blossoms out in waves from the spot, but the wound is closed. Who did it – Cree or Jester – he doesn’t know. He waits a moment, thinking. He shouldn’t have to hide anymore, feasibly. If this – he looks up and around again in wonderment – is something Caleb is capable of creating in the middle of the lonely north, then they are grown quite powerful enough to rival the Tomb Takers, he should think. But the memory, strangely detached, of the eyes, floods back into his consciousness.

No. There will be no rest for the wicked. He may not be Lucien, but he bears Lucien’s powers, and the burden that comes with them, for good or for ill.

“They’re here then. They came for... him. With...with her.”

Quickly, Cree nods and then looks down and away, as if afraid. “Some weeks ago…they used a sending spell on me, asking after your…fragment’s whereabouts. I…did my best to waylay them. My apologies. I should have told you. I did not want to distract you. I did not know that they would bring the usurper with them.”

He waves her concern aside quickly and literally, with a flourish of his hand. “What’s done is done.” Inwardly he winces, but outwardly he betrays no emotion. “She’s dead now, so what does it matter? They’ve done me a great favour in bringing her to me. Who healed me?”

“The one called Jester. A tiefling. Like y-“ Abruptly, she cuts off, but makes no attempt to cover her tracks. Where he Lucien, truly, the damage would have been done. Pretentious, self-important prick, Molly thinks, but Cree is still speaking and rushes to listen. “She had the spells left for something more helpful than I.”

More than once, Molly’s wished he could tell Cree to take her subservience and stuff it, but he doesn’t. “And the rest of us?”

“Within, too. They have generously opened their home to us. Any friends of Lucien’s are friends of theirs, apparently. And yet...they brought DeRogna.”

Molly scoffs. Yes, well, whatever part of him that is Lucien certainly hadn’t been complaining. “It’s no matter,” he repeats. “I’m glad she’s dead.”

“Yes. And now we can take the book back.”

Though he’s heard her speak of his missing book before, he’s more focused on the fact that the Nein apparently had called him Lucien. So they weren’t sure. Well, if they were the ones scrying on him, which seemed all the more likely with every passing moment, he hadn’t exactly made himself easy to separate from the person he was pretending to be, especially since they hadn’t known Lucien.

“They said that, did they?” he asks, narrowing his eyes, twitching the corners of his lips. He wants to break into a smile, a real smile, not the one he wears for Cree’s benefit. Not the one that makes him feel like an animal. “And where are they now?”

“Everyone else is in the kitchen. I can have food brought for you as well.”

Giving a curt nod, Molly rests his head back against the sofa. “Good.”

Cree stands, hesitates, turns. “When you would not respond, even after the spell…”

“Later. I will tell you. Later.” Red eyes flash in his mind’s eye and he pushes it away. Rolling out his shoulders, it turns out, is a mistake, because it only aggravates the ache in his side more. “For now, get me the Wizard. Magic like this… It’s powerful.”

“Yes. I had the same thought.” Once more she turns to go, and once more, Molly calls her back.

“Oh, and Cree?”

“Yes, Nonagon?”

“Send the wizard out with the food. You can remain in the kitchen. Eat a meal. You’ve earned it.”

“Later, perhaps. For now, I will sit with you.” Concern, it seems, beats out order. With that, Cree weaves her way through the library room towards an opening in the floor and disappears from sight. A relief, to be sure. For a while, he simply sits, catching his breath and gradually shifting his arm to see how it tugs at his side. Gingerly, he even pulls open the torn remnants of his shirt. Where he’d been stabbed there remains only a mottled bruising.

Suddenly there’s a sound, so unexpected that Molly’s tail thrashes him, spaded tail tip flopping heavily on the seat cushion. A cat, orange and sleek, hops up beside him, eyeing him with unnaturally blue eyes.

“Frumpkin,” he says first, blinking, then croons again. “Frumpkin.”

Lazily, the cat’s eyes blink.

“Whatever has your pretty master got up to, handsome boy, precious cat?” Shifting as he reaches over to pet the feycat a little on the head, Molly groans, stiff. “Is it the Nein who have been scrying on me?”

A small sound, a chirrup – not quite a meow nor a purr – is the only response.

“Cree is bringing Caleb to me. But I need you to do something important. Will you still listen if I give you an order? Do you know that it’s me? That I’m Mollymauk?”

Frumpkin’s paws kneed the cushion once or twice and then he stands, arches his back to stretch, his head rubbing against Molly’s elbow.

“Okay. Good. I need you to tell him who I am. I don’t know when I’ll be able to do it, so I need you to do it for me. Somehow. Please?”

Another chirrup and some purring sooth the worst of Molly’s concerns, but there is nothing that can ease the terrible burden that is lying to Caleb’s face. But with Cree in the room, he will have no other choice. No other recompense. If it were Yasha, he’s sure there would be something he could say or do, subtly enough to make her understand without risking Cree’s recognizing it, but Caleb is the only reasonable person for Lucien to ask after, and so Caleb it will be.

Which is complicated, of course.

It’s been such a very long time since Molly considered any of the Nein save Yasha separately. So desperate was he for them to appear, he’d put aside the individuals to consider the whole instead. How he missed them, how he yearned once again for their company.

But any thoughts beyond that? They’d been impossible when merely the thought of seeing them again seemed to be a dangerously futile hope.

The last time Molly can recall seeing Caleb, it was in the heat of battle. Protecting him had always been second nature, never-you-mind any preferences he’s had (still has) for Caleb’s hidden beauty. Hidden, maybe, to others, but plain as day to Molly. He’d had an unforgivingly intense fondness for Caleb, but held it back, too nervous that Caleb wasn’t in such a place to receive any ardent and amorous overtures when the fellow could barely take a compliment from the little goblin who claimed mothering rights over him.

Briefly, Molly wishes he could remember better what he’d seen of them in the ruins, most especially Caleb. At least that way, he could be prepared to school his reaction. Subdued, the attraction had been, perhaps, but never gone.

Molly tries to lose himself in the soft and monotonous stroking of Frumpkin’s sleek form, but the little cat butts him hard in his injured side before slinking into his lap, rubbing his body all across Molly’s torso.

He misses Caleb’s entrance for it.

At first, Molly notices nothing altered. The crackling of the fire, the purring of the cat, and then… Molly stops abruptly, as though caught doing something he oughtn’t, and looks up. First, he sees Cree, holding a loaded platter and a goblet, but there, flanking her stock still, stands Caleb, his heart pounding. (Molly shuts his eyes tight for a moment, trying to focus his attention on any other sound. The crackling of the fire, the purring of the cat, even Cree’s pulse, but Caleb’s heartbeat is insistent, steady, intoxicating. He doesn’t like hearing it; it’s unnatural.)

Lips parted, eyes shining. These are the next things Molly notices, and then, he takes in the rest of his lovely wizard’s form.

The hunch is gone from Caleb’s shoulders. Now, his back is straight, his bearing almost regal. Not an inch of dirt slanders the windburnt pink of his cheeks, which Molly sees are still speckled over with freckles, and his hair is long and sleek and clean. Combed through to shining, it’s tied back at the nape of his neck, but the long ponytail hangs just long enough to drape over his shoulder. His clothes are new, still in warm earthen tones, but much more handsomely made, accentuating the shape of him, sinewy and artful, a lean profile with sturdy shoulders and slim hips and slender arms that lead to dexterous hands and long, graceful fingers.

Gone is the hidden creature Molly knew, someone new and confident and proud in his place. In that moment, the one fear he’s harboured all the while finally coalesces.

They are as strangers to him.

They came for him, but even now, he’s left behind.

He stares, shamelessly, drinking in this new, uninhibited Caleb, and Caleb – with his eyes so blue and beautiful they rival that of the threshold crest within the Aeorian chamber just outside the tower - stares back.

Porcelain on glass shatters their mutual intensity; Caleb looks away first, down at the floor, a little to the left as if ashamed, and Molly is suddenly overwhelmed by the need for food, if only to distract himself from the sight. “You bring enough for yourself, Cree?”

Her expression sours, but she takes some of the meats off the plate and chews them cautiously.

After he’s had a bite of his bread and sunk his sharp incisors into a strip of jerky, Molly leans back, artfully, and looks back up at Caleb who has not moved an inch. It’s just a con. Just another con. You can pull it off. You’ve managed so far.

“I’m told this is your tower.”

Caleb swallows. With a keen gaze, Molly watched the bob of his Adam’s apple.

“It is.” Breathing deeply, Caleb’s chest rises and falls with noticeable weight. “I trust you are – ah - you are feeling better.”

Reminding himself that Cree is still in the room, Molly wears the smile he’s decided belongs to Lucien, wracking his brain for words to match. Hopes it’s not lascivious enough to send Caleb running in the opposite direction, but pointed enough to appease Cree. “I’m not losing blood by the second anymore. I’d call that an improvement.”

Caleb flinches, visibly, and steps back, almost on reflex. 

“Oh, don’t leave just yet,” he chastens. “Come sit. Enjoy the fire with me for a moment or two, won’t you?” Lifting Frumpkin back into his lap casually, he holds the jerky out for the cat to nosh on, which he does rather viciously. “It’s a lovely tower. Such…particular décor.”

With a furrowed brow, and very stiff, Caleb sits down, watching Frumpkin carefully as Molly continues to pet him and feed him from hand as though he had done so every day of his life.

“I was wondering if you – your group, that is – would show up someday.” Pointedly, he looks at Cree, who grins a little nervously. It’s a sore point for her, something Molly can exploit and he tries hard not to feel the least little bit bad about doing so. “Curious you should do so now. And with...” he thinks back to the name that Cree had bitten out earlier. “DeRogna. Vile woman.” That, at least, he finds he means.

“You are hardly the only one curious in this equation.” Oh, and there’s caution in those words that breaks Molly’s heart. But there’s nothing left to do.

Frumpkin nips a bit at his finger, but Molly only laughs at the creature's indignant defense of his master. “Run along then, pet,” he directs so all may hear. “Off to your pretty master. He’ll be jealous otherwise.” Frumpkin does as ordered, and the quality of Caleb’s stare alters, if only a hairsbreadth.

“You wanted to see me for some purpose?”

Molly levels his gaze and blinks, wishing it could convey the depth of his feeling the way it did for Frumpkin, but Caleb’s rigid stance does not relax in the slightest.

“I have a feeling that our interests – that is, our scholarly pursuits – lie in similar directions. Why have you come here, to Eiselcross? To Aeor?”

Breathlessly, Caleb gives a nervous laugh. “That is a complex question. One that I alone cannot answer for my group. But if you were to join with us-”

“No.” He’s not ready yet to face them all at once, to brave pretending for more audience than just these two. “I asked you. I want to know what you think.”

Caleb bites his lip, white pearl on pale pink.

Gorgeous.

Gods, he’s so pathetic. Molly shifts, self-conscious.

“Well, for one, we were hired to come here.” Caleb’s lips twitch just a bit; he’s not lying, but Molly’s sure it’s not the whole truth either. “By Lady DeRogna. And now you have killed her, so we shall not be paid for the rest of our work.”

“Hired to come here for what purpose?” He asks, then swallows down all the affection he holds in his heart and goes for the throat. “To kill me?”

Already pale, Caleb blanches, stark white. “No. We did not come here to kill you.”

Molly chuckles. To Caleb’s credit, he doesn’t flinch again. Cree, however, is smiling rather like the predator she is. “No, you were trying to beat us to the punch, weren’t you? Did you tell her that she was playing catch up? Did you tell her I was alive? Or did you keep what you learned through your scrying to yourself?”

Cree’s tail thrashes at this revelation, but she’s conveniently still otherwise - if Caleb’s versed in the tail language of tieflings and tabaxi it won’t matter either way.

“We did not tell her.” Caleb has chosen his words carefully, answering, and yet, not answering. But Molly doesn’t press him any further. Guarded sapphire eyes narrow as they watch him for the barest hint of unveiled emotion. “It would not have been in our best interests, you see.”

Clicking his tongue, Molly nods, judicious. “Well, it would be in your best interests now to consider your next words very carefully. Do you, or do you not, have an interest in what lies North?”

“I personally have a vested interest. I do not, however, speak for the rest of my friends,” Caleb insists once more. “Why are you so interested in what I think?”

Molly grins and shakes his head and raises a brow. “Come now, if you don’t play me for a fool, I won’t play you for one either.” There’s a bunch of grapes – green – on the platter and he lifts them by the stem, tilts his head back and lets his teeth just graze the flesh of the lowest, tugging it free. Juice bursts in his mouth, truly delicious after weeks and weeks of rations, but he contains his unseemly sounds of pleasure, playing up the caricature for all he is worth. He lowers the rest to the platter and watches Caleb as he chews.

The expression he finds there would be nearly unreadable if he didn’t already know what he was looking for. Something like fear gleams in Caleb’s eyes and Molly’s heart hurts to have put it there, but it’s all he can do to not just outright say hello, my name is Mollymauk Tealeaf, Molly to my friends, and so the smallest of hints will just have to suffice. Even if all they seem to do is convince Caleb of more terrible things than the truth.

“You could use a wizard.”

Molly snaps and points. “Got it in one. Such a bright one, you are. Well.” He stands abruptly – a poor choice, but he keeps the wince from his expression with a jovial smirk. “There’ll be plenty of time and opportunity to talk…the future... later.”

At a more measured pace, Caleb stands, too. “Ja. Later. You and your troupe are welcome to stay. We do not figure any of us will go back out until tomorrow. Should you like, I can show you a room. Your companions were not sure what you would prefer.”

Or if I would wake up, yeah, I get the picture.

“Certainly,…” He waits to see if Caleb will take the bait. After a long, tense few moments, Caleb swallows again.

“Widogast. Caleb Widogast.” An inhale. An exhale. “And you? What should we call you?”

Like the bitterest of herbs, the name rolls of his tongue. “I am Lucien.” He draws his hand up over his heart and bows a little, performatively. “The Nonagon.”

Without another word, Caleb leads him away.

Behind the predatious glare he wears as Cree stalks beside him, Mollymauk’s heart is breaking. It can’t end soon enough, and yet, he worries, feeling Cree’s tail swish against his own, it’s not liable to end any time soon.

Magic sails them up to the next floor. Truly, this creation of Caleb’s is magnificent. The next level is hardly as ostentatious as the one below, but then, this is but a common area. Three rooms fill this space, each with a door decorated with some indicative symbol or another. The one before which Caleb leads them bears a silver crescent moon.

“The guest room. Should you need anything, ring the bell, ask the cats, and they will provide it to you,” Caleb says, his lips pursed in a thin smile. “Rest well.”

He doesn’t know what to say, so Molly simply stares him down and blinks before pressing down the handle and walking in. Neither of his companions follow. With a click of the door, for the first time in ages, Molly finds himself totally alone. Even though he’d hoped to get a private moment with Caleb, this is blissful in its own right. No more Lucien. No more Nonagon. No more façade, no more con, no more ploy, just Molly.

Just Molly.

When he finally turns away from the door, his jaw drops in awe. Tears fill his eyes and he has to wipe them away with the back of his hand to clearly see the space before him.

The room is his.

Clearly, Caleb designed it for him. As with the library, the interior fireplace features a mural above it in the likeness of his coat. The rest of the first chamber is just as undeniably him. The wallpaper is a deep teal with gold peacock patterning over it. There’s a small round table, draped in a maroon and silver scarf. Candles of varying sizes and height sit upon it, lit, and crystals crowd their golden bases. A tarot deck sits neatly atop a slice of black agate, the moon card propped face up beside it. Through his silent tears, Molly manages a few shuddering breaths. The chair is simple, wooden, and there’s more space yet to be discovered, but he falls into it anyway, slipping down into a slouch that most certainly will feel aggravating in the morning. But he doesn’t care.

The moon card is his own work. For a while he just stares at it, but curiosity gets the best of him and he reaches for the rest of the deck, eager to do a reading. When he goes to shuffle them about a bit, however, he discovers that the rest of the deck is a basic one, though it bears the same back he’d given his own deck. Perturbed, he slides them into the pouch at his waist for later and finally finds the strength to stand again.

Nearer the door, there’s a long table draped in similar silks. An incense burner rests there, and a small shrine to the Moonweaver. Taking a moment to light the candles there, and waft some incense through the air, he sends up a brief prayer to his goddess in thanks and then turns to the rest of the space. There’s a divan, one for lounging more than sitting, in a deep green velvet and a little oval table on which sits a stack of books. The one with the cat on the cover looks interesting, but even his limited abilities with the written word get him nowhere when he opens it, leaving Molly to conclude that it must be in a language not of his repertoire.

But there’s still more space left to explore. A set of silk curtains closes off the entry to the next chamber. They’re done like the lining of his coat, in teals with silver half-moons; it’s endearing, if a little much, but Molly has never been one to stick up his nose at gaudy things.

Parting the curtain, he steps beyond. He’d expected a bedroom – that was what the place was for, was it not? Sleeping?

But instead he finds an altogether different chamber.

The walls are painted to look like the fireworks over Hupperdook. Tears that had slowed flow rampant and unchecked now. Not much else fills the space. A mat of woven fibers, matching his platinum dragon tapestry, some embroidered throw pillows, a table with a bowl of exotic fruits and a jar full of colourful little shapes which he quickly discovers to be hard melted sugar.

Sucking on a red one, Molly makes for the next doorway, covered by the same set of curtains. Beyond is finally the bedroom. A four poster canopy bed juts out from the right hand wall. The bedspread is a rich, dark purple, the curtains such a deep teal he almost mistakes them for black. In here, the same peacock patterned wallpaper curls around the room. There’s a wardrobe and a samovar and a copper tub already full of heated water. Directly across from the bed is the armoire, which boasts a large mirror and an extensive collection of perfumes, nail lacquers, and shimmering gold eye creams and even a clay mock of his very own horns. It takes him a minute to realize they’re meant as a placeholder for his jewelry; as soon as it hits him, he feels a fool and decides to take advantage of it as well as the bath. It’s short work to remove everything – he’s certainly gotten used to it, if not skilled, and before long his horns and ears are totally bare of any decoration. It is then that he sets his sights once more on the bath.

However unnecessarily, there’s a privacy screen to the side of the tub. Molly shifts it a bit so that it faces the opposite way for which it would be useful and then shucks his coat, vest, and shirt, draping them over the screen before he settles on the chest at the foot of the bed to deal with the laces and buckles on his boots. It takes time – not nearly so much as his old boots had – but it’s still always a pain to deal with by himself. Regardless, they come off eventually and he quickly shimmies out of the rest of his clothing, throwing them haphazard over the screen as well.

The first dip of his toe into the water is like heaven. The water – which must be magical – is perfectly heated. He pulls back a moment before making a decision and heading back through the middle room into the outermost chamber.

“Ring the bell, ask the cats…” Molly murmurs, looking around before finding the tassel- ended pull near the lounging chair. There’s a pleasant chime when he tugs on it and in short order, a cat is popping its head out of a chamber in the wall that Molly hadn’t before noticed. “Um, hello.” He reaches in to scratch the smokey grey cat under the chin. “Can you bring me a bottle of warm spiced wine and a mug? And maybe a plate of candied plums? Thank you?”

A tiny mew answers him. Briefly, the cat rubs its soft head over his hand and then disappears back into the secret cat passageway. Molly shakes his head and laughs.

“Of all people, you fall for the crazy quiet cat man. Good going, Mollymauk. Great work.”

He relaxes on the divan, comfortable in the nude, for the air temperature is equally as perfect as the water had been, until the cat returns with his request, carrying the platter balanced impossibly on the flat of his tail.

“I’ve seen some pretty amazing feats of balance in my short time, but you are by far the most impressive.” Predictably, the cat purrs. Molly tilts his head. “Can you do me one last favour?”

Great blue eyes blink back at him.

“When it's evening, and everyone else is asleep, come back here, I’ll be waiting for you.”

Another blink is all he gets before the cat disappears once more. He takes up the platter eagerly and heads back to the bath. Repurposing the stool for the armoire is easy enough and before long Molly is finally sinking into the water, mug in one hand, a slice of candied plum in the other.

It’s wonderful, until he opens his mouth and speaks without thinking. “This is the best damn bath I’ve had in my entire life.”

His words don’t even echo in the much draped chamber. Yes, for the first time in over a year, Mollymauk Tealeaf is truly alone. He sets the candied plum aside and sips the mulled wine before setting it aside too and dunking himself, saturating his short curls in the soothing heat where he can’t hear the nothing that talks back to him when he speaks.

Only when his lungs burn for air does he surface. The soap is patchouli, the hair tonics smell of lilacs.

This time, when Molly cries, at least his tears don’t feel any different than the water sluicing over his cheeks.

He’s just made the decision to get out when the water’s run cold when he realizes that it will never run cold - Caleb’s magic keeps it warm. Instead, once he’s washed his hair, he finishes the candied plums and drinks just a little more spiced wine before finally dragging himself dripping from the tub. The same little table that bears all the bathing accoutrement has a stack of towels too and he drying himself off before loosely squeezing the fabric around his curls in hopes of preserving them.

The wardrobe is his next destination. He could just as easily put on the clothes of his long travels, but something tells him that that the cats might be able to clean them if he asks, and if whatever is behind the big wooden doors is anything like the rest of the room, well, he’d do a piss poor job keeping up appearances for the Tomb Takers.

When he opens the wardrobe, for the third time that night - or is it the fourth? - he’s beset by tears.

It’s his coat.

Reaching out, he runs the fabric of one sleeve lovingly between his fingers. Stitch for stitch, it’s there, clean and untorn. No blood stains it at all. Pristine. Like new. Unconsciously, he brings his hand to his chest to rub the silver of the scar that bisects his sternum. He’d looked for it a bit that day, sitting in the ruinations of his previous life, shivering in the damp morning dew, dirt clinging to his skin, but he hadn’t seen it anywhere.

They’d taken it.

They’d kept it.

All this time, the Nein had held onto him and he’d never even known it.

Gritting his teeth, he swallows down the emotion. Reluctantly, but firmly, with one last long glance, he moves his coat to the back of the wardrobe.

He cannot wear it. Maybe someday soon, he’ll be himself again. Someday soon, he’ll be free.

Instead, Molly picks out a shirt much like his own. It’s a soft sage with a wide neck that ties shut. He pairs it with a pair of black suede trousers and is just working on pulling on his boots when the grey cat returns, twining in between his legs, rubbing against his ankles.

“Hello there. Everyone’s asleep then?” Molly doesn’t wait for further acknowledgement. “Two things then. For one, can you get these cleaned? I’ll need to wear them for tomorrow. And then, I need you to show me to your master. Can you do that? And without being seen- you’re sure they’re all asleep? That there’s no one watching this room?”

The flick of the cat’s tail is unmistakably affirmative and Molly feels a sense of relief that he’s not felt since last waking from his latest grade. Not once in all that time.

“Take me to him, then, please, if you could?”

The cat wastes no time in trotting away and Molly follows it posthaste. It’s only as he’s exiting that he realizes that he doesn’t know what he will say to Caleb when he gets there; try as he might, his mind is blank. All that time he’d sat in front of Caleb, bursting to tell the truth and now that it’s possible, the words to explain have fled. The cat and he both float up the iris one, two floors before the cat stops in front of a door that bears - predictably - a little wooden cutout of a cat on it. What will he do? What will he say? Will he even believe me?

“Thanks, Smokey,” Molly murmurs, reaching down to stroke the cat one last time before he trots back off to finish the chores he’s set it to. Only when it is gone, does he set his sights back on the door. Still, no plan of action has formed. Maybe it’s for the best. He never did well at executing plans anyways.

Tentatively, Molly lifts his knuckles to the wood and knocks.

At first, he hears nothing, but if Caleb’s chambers are anything like his own, well, perhaps he ought to knock harder, but then, there’s a mumble from inside, the low soft sort that Caleb tends to use with Frumpkin, and oh Molly hopes the little cat had been able to convey at least part of the message he’d requested.

But when the door opens, it’s clear from the unmasked look of shock - and is there fear there too - that no such message has been delivered.

_And why shouldn’t he be afraid of me? I’m afraid of me, too._

“Ah...good evening,” though to Molly’s ears it is clear Caleb finds it anything but. “ Is there something not to your liking?”

“Let’s you and I have a chat,” he says, pushing his way inside, courtesy be damned. Bewildered, Caleb lets him and shuts the door behind him though he remains standing, hand on the knob.

Caleb’s chambers are simple. The layout is the same, but the walls are bare wood and save for the three books on the end table - the same three books - there is no other spec of décor. As though Caleb hadn’t put the same effort into himself as he had others. But Molly puts it aside. He’d like to spend more time cataloguing all the small details of the space - what few there appear to be - but Caleb watches him like a hawk and the discomfort is settling thick in his throat.

Tail twitching with nervousness, Molly stops in the center of the room, whirls around and stares. “Caleb-” he starts and then stops just as abruptly.

Caleb’s shoulders are stiff and his hand tightens on the doorknob; it’s fight or flight kicking in, and Molly knows that everything can go so, so badly. If he could just-

“Caleb.” He takes a step forward, and then stops when the wizard flinches. “ Please. I’m not here to hurt you. I-I- You have to help me, Caleb. You’ve got to help me.”

The expression Caleb wears darkens impossibly, his brow furrowing over with all the thunder of a storm cloud. Mistrustful at worst, cautious at best.

“Help...you.”

“Caleb, it’s me. I swear it’s me, I couldn’t- With Cree, I- They think that-”

A sharp sound cuts the silent space - Caleb’s intake of breath. His eyes go wide, whites all around before they narrow and his mouth parts ever so slightly. If it weren’t such a tense moment, Molly knows he’d certainly be more distracted by the sight than he is. But everything - everything - hinges on Caleb believing him.

“Caleb, please say my name. No one’s said my name in so long. I’m not him; I don’t want to be him.” A sob takes Molly by surprise and his hand flies to his mouth. Hot tears prickle at his eyes once more. Nothing has gone the way he wanted it to, but it’s too late for take-backs and he turns away to hide the shame of his desperation.

“By the gods... _Mollymauk_?”

From Caleb’s lips, in Caleb’s thick, warm accent, his name feels like a benediction, a magic incantation, dispelling the last vestiges of Lucien that cling inside the dark recesses of his person. The only eyes that see him now, inside and out, are blue and not red, full of emotion, instead of endless entropic nothing.

“Please believe me, Caleb. _Please_ , I know how it looks, but-”

Caleb’s tight knuckled grasp on the door handle falls away and he stalks forward into Molly’s space so abruptly that he stumbles back.

“Prove to me.” The intensity of Caleb’s voice stuns Molly so completely that he doesn’t know what to say. “Prove to me with the most obscure of verisimilitude, that you are who you say you are, or so help me, I will bring this tower down upon you for your slander.”

For a while, Molly’s jaw just works up and down as he tries and fails to think of anything to say. All that time, and comparatively such little time overall, and not one thing comes to mind. “I…Frumpkin!”

“Go on.”

“You told him that he should do whatever I say. And he’s fey, right?” Molly looks about for the cat. “So he’d know, if I wasn’t me, right? Ask him. Ask him and he’ll tell you! Or I’ll tell him to do something and you can see that I’m telling the truth. Or-we-we covered my dick in breakfast and we tried to con that healing center and it was a disaster and then, Fjord! Later, in Labenda, when I pushed his head in the water? And we all had a laugh? And I made the bandits strip naked? And-and I danced with Nott! In Hupperdook! The Fireworks! They’re the ones in my room, my _room_ , _oh_ , _Caleb-_ “

“Enough!” Caleb’s sharp exclamation stalls Molly’s tirade. “Enough.” An ugly look, something halfway between agony and pleasure, contorts Caleb’s features. “I believe you.” There’s a pause; Caleb’s words, he hears them…but he does not comprehend can’t hardly imagine that- “I believe you, Mollymauk Tealeaf,” Caleb repeats. “I _believe_ you.”

“Oh thank gods.” All the tension runs off his shoulders like rain and the weight lessens if only for a moment. His breaths come sharp, choking, and he sobs dry for a moment before a smile manages to break through. Still, they’re both just standing there and Molly longs for the safety and security of Yasha’s arms, but Caleb’s tears – Caleb’s tears; Caleb’s crying over him - will have to be enough, because this alone is risky enough and he’s just opening his mouth to tell Caleb to take the Nein and run far _far_ away when Caleb strides the last step and a half between them and throws his arms around Molly in a tight embrace.

A hand grasps the back of his neck and words in Zemnian fall softly on his ears, but Molly doesn’t even try to make heads or tails of them; Caleb is holding him. It’s so far from what he expected that Molly almost forgets to hug him back, though not for long and soon he’s sobbing into Caleb’s shoulder uninhibitedly. It’s nice (it’s wonderful, it’s everything he’d ever hoped might someday be possible) but he’s not Yasha and right now, Yasha is all Molly really wants.

But beggars can’t be choosers and once, he would have begged for this, so Molly fists his hands in Caleb’s loose black shirt and takes all the comfort he’s longed for for months at a time, with hopes for it to never, ever end now that he finally has it.

But eventually, Caleb does pull back, though he keeps his grip on Molly’s shoulder, and his free hand falls on Molly’s cheek fondly.

“It is too good to be true.”

“It is true.”

Caleb’s breaths are audible and he shakes his head. “I know. I am sorry. I am so sorry. We failed you.”

“Chin up, Mister Caleb. Could be a lot worse.” Molly puts his forefinger to Caleb’s chin and does just that. “I could still be in the ground.”

The laugh Caleb barks out in response hardly sounds amused. More pained, as though Molly’s taken a dagger and stabbed it through his heart. “We should have come for you sooner. I should not have- We- Everything went wrong. Everything-“

There’s panic in his eyes, a light that’s familiar, but not nearly as imminent as the last time Molly saw it. Taking Caleb’s face in his hands, he presses that same familiar kiss to the wizard’s forehead the same way he had so very long ago. “Hey, Mister Caleb,” he whispers when he pulls away. “What’s done is done. It’s in the past, remember? It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It matters to us. It-you changed us. You have no idea what you did to us, how you-“ Caleb bites his lip and pulls away, fully, finally, and sits down in one of the roughhewn chairs by the fireplace. Elbows propped on the table, he leans his head in his hands.

Nervous still, Molly takes the seat across from him. It’s not uncomfortable, per say, but compared to his own room, the place is far more than spare. The waiting is the hardest part, while Caleb gathers his thoughts, takes everything Molly has laid before him and puts it all together.

Molly, for his part, wants nothing to do with making heads or tail of what Caleb has said. It’s too much, much too much, and it means things he’s not sure he’s ready to take on quite yet. Always, he’s been more comfortable just deciding things didn’t have to matter. But lately, the opposite has seemed more and more true.

The past matters because it’s affecting him now, in the present, but the reality check isn’t one he’s prepared to cash.

So instead, Molly focuses on Caleb. There will be time to talk about himself later. And probably not near enough of it.

“Hey, Caleb, it’s alright.”

Finally, Caleb lifts his head from his hands. Fixing Molly with a stare so piercing it feels like he’s been impaled, Caleb levels. “For a very long time, it has not been. Why did you pretend? Why not just tell us? We will whisk you away, and you will be safe from yo- from Lucien’s past. We would not let any harm come to you.”

And there, there is something new. Because it’s always been Molly protecting Caleb, not the other way around, and Molly’s not entirely sure how to feel about that. About usefulness and worth and the little niche he’d eked out within their little group.

“It’s not so simple as all that. Believe me, I wish it were. I’ve wanted nothing more than for all of you to come for me – I’ve spent hours, walking, daydreaming that you’d all come down the road in the other direction. Every possible way you can think of, I’ve imagined. Up until…hours? ago, I thought that’s what we’d do. You’d take me away and I’d never see their faces again and I’d never have to worry. It’s still what I want. I just-“

“Know better than to believe it is possible?”

It’s Molly’s turn to laugh dismally. “Yeah. Something like that. I don’t know exactly what it was Lucien was up to, but he made a lot of enemies, a lot of powerful enemies. And this…this…I don’t know. The Eyes. They want me to do something. I’m- what if it doesn’t matter? That I’m not him. That I’m not Lucien. What if it’s just this body? I tried so hard to make it mine, but what if it never belonged to him either? We could leave, go far, far away, and I don’t think that would change. I’m-“ He closes his eyes, turns his head away.

“It is alright to be afraid, Mister Mollymauk.” A warmth covers Molly’s hand where it rests on the table. A warmth that’s thrumming with Caleb’s pulse. “There is no shame in that.”

When Molly gets up the courage to open his eyes again, Caleb’s expression is determined.

“I have felt, since we were first approached by…” Caleb’s eyes dart about for a moment. “Lady DeRogna for this mission, that it was fate leading us here. And fate has led us to you. And now, you feel that whatever it is that awaits us in the North cannot be avoided. Perhaps, that is also fate. Never before have I believed in fate, Mister Mollymauk. Not really. But there is only so much coincidence I can parse. This…this moment. Here. Now. This was meant to be. We were meant to meet. And were meant to find you again. Before, we were weak. Broken apart.” The earnest expression is bears takes Molly by surprise. “You made us, Mollymauk Tealeaf. You have the power to break us just as surely. I am glad it will not come to that. You do not know the conversations that were had in your absence this evening, once the Tomb Takers were in their rooms. You do not know how we have argued. Fought, even, over the course to pursue.”

“What do you mean, ‘fought’?”

Caleb’s sigh is heavy, weighted with burdens yet unknown. “Beauregard… she and I are…siblings fight like this. We are both passionate. We both have strong opinions. But it does not matter anymore. Everything will be fine now. Caduceus said we were divided. Only you have that power over us these days, it would seem.”

Abruptly, Molly stands. The chair screeches over the floor and they both jump at the suddenness of it all. “Stop saying that.”

“It is the tru-“

“I don’t care!” Unfiltered rage, from where it came he knows not, spills over, bubbling like lava in the river they’d passed on the way up. “I’ve never cared. So just stop saying it, please. Say anything else. Anything else but that. I don’t want power. I just-”

“Want to be free.”

“It sounds so simple when you put it like that.”

Wryly, Caleb smiles the smile of someone Molly knows is kindred in his desire. “Ja, I suppose it does. I have learned much in the time since we lost you, Mister Mollymauk, and if I have learned nothing else, it is that freedom is something to be fought for. And running is not freedom. You are right, even if you do not like it. Whatever is here, whatever brought Lucien, and the Tomb Takers, Vess DeRogna, all of us – whatever brought us here, the city in the vision, the Eyes of Nine, it must dealt with one way or another. And only then will you be truly free.”

An ache builds in the empty, echoing chasm beside Molly’s heart. It would be so easy to reach out, to take Caleb’s hand in his own and hold onto it forever. To press kisses to his knuckles and beg Caleb to make him forget, to banish the darkness and the fright. It would be so easy to draw him closer, to caress his cheek and smooth the flyaways from his forehead. To lean into his space and just be.

But it’s not that simple. It never was, it still isn’t.

Might never be.

It’s not the right time, but Molly’s had a lot of practice with patience recently; he’d waited patiently the first time around, and now that Caleb appears to be a lot more comfortable around him in general, perhaps that patient waiting won’t take so very long at all this time.

Daydreams could become reality sooner than he thought.

So he puts it all aside and settles for something far less exciting than kisses. “It sounds like you know an awful lot more about this that I do. And that woman. DeRogna…I didn’t know her name until right before we talked in the library. Cree said it – but I…” he lets it trail away. Saying it makes it real. Softly, sitting back down so he can dig his talon into the wood, he says it anyways. “She killed me.”

“Yeah. That’s um…so you said.”

“I don’t know how to feel about it,” Molly hedges, starting to pace. It’s not precisely the truth, but as he’d only just intimated, the truth has rarely been his friend. “It wasn’t me; it was him, but it was also me. I-I recognized her. That’s never happened before. Whatever she did to me…to him…me, I don’t know. Whatever she did, I don’t know if I’ve ever fully recovered. Something…” The onset of a headache threatens to push at his skull. “I’d thank her, except I think whatever she did really, really messed me up.”

Heavily, Caleb sighs. “Well, she is gone now, but we can still ask her corpse questions.”

Molly’s eyebrows shoot to his hairline and he blinks. “Say you what now?”

“Ah, ja, this is a thing we do now. Well, which Caduceus does. But you have not properly met Caduceus. He, ah, presided over your funeral. He makes tea out of dead people. It’s a whole thing.”

“Interesting fellow.” Feeling odd, Molly trails a finger across the back of the chair a bit before finally sitting back down. “I suppose I’ll meet him tomorrow.”

“Ja, I suppose…” Caleb’s brow furrows and he runs a hand over his mouth. “I know it is likely not going to be a topic of conversation that you favour, but I have to ask you. What…what did you do to her? I have never seen anything like it in all my years. We did not know she had red eyes like yours until we... examined the body. Unless you did that to her?”

Caleb is not wrong. In fact, he’s the farthest thing from wrong a person could be.

“You’re right.” The dirt under his nails is suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

All the time in the world could have passed and he still won’t want to talk about it. The stars and the moon could fall from the heavens, the divine gate could shatter, the world could end. Nothing will make him ready to think about the way it felt, how he could feel her pulse, how he can feel anyone’s pulse, how he can key into that blood and just squeeze. Pressure and tension, the vice grip of his mind, the strength of his will over another’s, tugging the lifeforce free until they’re limp as a ragdoll, a collapsed heap of blood and bone.

The influx adrenaline rush of the power trip rushing through his veins.

(That’s the worst part. How incredible it feels as he’s doing it.)

“It was not the first time, was it?”

Molly swallows down a vicious retort and hangs his head lower. “The first time, I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”

“I am not here to punish you, Mollymauk Tealeaf. I am here to help you. But we do not have to talk about it anymore.”

Oddly enough, it’s the permission to stop that keeps him going. “I wanted to kill DeRogna. The first time was self-defense. He was going to kill me. I was weak and vulnerable after they brought me up out of the dirt; someone must have seen us come into Shady Creek Run. I think it was a genuine assasination attempt. I woke up, and he had the knife poised and I just-”

“Did what you needed to do.”

“But DeRogna is the only other. This time I knew what I was doing. I could replicate it now, if I wanted, explode another brain just for laughs.” And he does laugh, something more akin to a sob. Anguish subsumes his being but the laughter fills the empty cracks. He doesn’t know how to stop. “I saw her and I knew the moment I did that I hated her. I know she killed me, and I don’t remember it happening, but something in me, some part of me must. And I wanted her to suffer for what she did. So I made her suffer.” Gods, he wishes he could just stop crying. “And it felt good.”

The silence, somehow, isn’t the more terrible for his confession.

“We were planning on killing her eventually,” Caleb says, the manner of it so offhand that Molly’s shocked out of his self-pity in order to stare at his friend. “Sooner, later, sometime,” he continued. “ It was in the plans. She’s a member of the Assembly and she was cruel to Pumat Sol and Veth’s husband, and she was made of nothing but ambition and selfish desire. The world is no less for her absence in it, so I would not worry over much.”

Choosing to ignore all the important parts, the permissive statements, Molly furrows his brow. “Now, I remember Pumat, but who is Veth?”

All traces of callous indifference leaves Caleb. “Oh Molly, Veth is Nott, and Nott was not Nott at all. She was a halfling woman under a curse and we have put her right again. She is Veth again. Veth Brenatto, who has a husband, Yeza, and a son, Luc.”

Blinking Molly absorbs the information. “Nott the goblin is a halfling woman with a husband and a son?”

“Ja, she is. And she will be very glad to meet you. For her part in our conversation, she spoke only of getting you back, somehow. Beau and Fjord, they did not believe it would be possible. And Jester…” Caleb sighs. “She is...it is hard for her to keep the faith when the others have so little. Yasha, I think, would have stopped at nothing to get you back given the chance. And now she will not have to.”

“And you?” Molly presses, more out of need than curiosity. “Did you give up on me, too?”

Caleb’s sad smile tells Molly so much and still not enough. “I believed fate was leading us where we needed to be. And I still believe that to be true.”

It’s not an answer, but evidently it's all Molly is going to get. “Well…” Biting his lip hard - copper bursts on his tongue - Molly resigns himself to the only option present before them. “You’re going to have to keep the faith for a little while longer, Mister Caleb. Because no one else can know the truth.” It is immediately apparent that Caleb means to protest, but Molly holds out a hand, gently, settlingly and Caleb’s lips press shut firmly, though his eyes are alight with emotion. “I can barely keep my own secret as it is. The more they believe that I’m not me, the better that my charade will hold up for the Tomb Takers.”

“Molly-”

“It can’t happen. They can’t - Caleb, no matter how much I want to just, rush Yasha and pull her into my arms, I can’t. And if she knows, if they all know, they won’t be able to keep themselves from acting like normal.”

Caleb shook his head, bewildered. “But why me? Why not Yasha. You could have gone to anyone tonight, but you came here. Why not have taken the opportunity to tell Yasha?”

Like a pinned butterfly, Molly feels like he is stuck beneath Caleb’s stare. “Because it had to be you. You’re a wizard, and whatever it is Lucien was up to, your magic is going to be important here. Cree’s made that clear enough. If there’s anyone I can feasibly get close to without giving up the game, it’s you, Caleb.”

What he doesn’t say is how glad he is that it is Caleb he is sitting beside, no matter how much he wishes he could curl into Yasha’s embrace. It's the most they’ve ever spoken to one another in the entire time they’ve known one another, and Molly vows that he’ll memorize the conversation - good with the bad. Somehow, he knows that in the coming days he’s going to need the comfort of the memory of Caleb’s embrace, Caleb’s words, Caleb’s tear besmirched smiles.

“But what of you, Mollymauk?” Caleb’s voice is tight. “What of your needs? They are not liable to be kind to you, since they do not trust you.”

“Well, Mister Caleb,” Molly says. “I guess it’s up to you. I’ll try not to be too antagonistic. But from what I can tell, Lucien was… well…”

“Ja, I get the picture.” He nodded, morose. “I do not like it, but you are also not wrong. A large group like ours? We cannot keep a secret so large very convincingly. But be aware - Mister Clay, Caduceus, he may well figure you out regardless. He is very perceptive. Insightful.”

“Well, if you think he’s onto me, let him in on the secret, that is, if you think he can keep it.”

“Oh, I don’t believe that will be a problem for him. Very well, I will do as you have asked, Molly. And-” Quite suddenly, Caleb reached across the table to grasp Molly’s arm. “I promise you, we will do everything in our power to see this through. You will be free of the past, Mollymauk. As free as we can make you. I swear it. I swear it.” 

Earnestness is a becoming look on Caleb, Molly thinks as he lays a hand over Caleb’s and squeezes. He just wishes he could believe it.

Early the next morning, Molly wakes to a cat - the same grey one - bearing his old clothes and a note from Caleb; it takes him a bit to get through it (Caleb’s handwriting is rather cramped, if beautifully formed, which makes it just that much harder to parse) intimating that everything in the tower - save his coat, which was put there purposefully, cannot be brought out of the tower, and so must continue to wear the old ones in the meantime. Grateful for the heads up, Molly carefully folds up his beloved coat and hides it at the bottom of his pack where it should remain safe from prying eyes and redresses for the role he will have to continue playing. It goes against everything he’s built himself around, but all other avenues have been cut off. All roads loop back here, no matter how much he might fight and deny and scream.

Caleb is right. There is no freedom for him until the past is dealt with. Almost more than anything else, it is this that Mollymauk hates with such visceral passion that it’s hard to contain. Instead, he channels it into his performance, affecting a haughty scowl as he adjusts the vest over his shoulders and shakes out his mass of curls.

“Lucien, the Nonagon,” he says, a little theatrically. It’s good practice. He has a lot of people to convince, after all.

Smokey (who is actually Bartosz, so it turns out, according to the note) leads him to the kitchen, where he’s been informed all parties present will be gathered. Outside the great double doors, Molly stops. Nerves prickle uncomfortably under his skin and his breathing is starting to get erratic, so he closes his eyes and focuses on Caleb’s arms around him, Caleb’s hand on his, Caleb’s impassioned promises. Spirit bolstered, if only a little and only temporarily, he pushes the doors open dramatically, and steps through.

All eyes are on him in an instant.

He licks his lips, tries not to look nervous and lets a slow smile spread on his face. “Quite a spread.”

Caleb – Moonweaver bless him – helps him out. “Ah, um. Lucien, whatever you desire can be accommodated. Please, simply ask the cats.”

With a measured pace he circles the tables. The eyes follow him, though their weight is different. The Tomb Takers are always watching him with a certain expectation – he guides their actions to a certain extent. But the Nein watch him differently. Like if they look away he’ll disappear. Like they don’t trust him to be who he appears – and he’s about to break that trust. Knowingly.

He leans over to the grey cat and asks softly for a meat pie – something warm for the last moments they’ll spend indoors – before arriving at the Tomb Taker’s table where he swings his legs one by one over the bench and settles in the middle, with Cree on his right. It’s a chore not to look to Caleb for the support he so desperately wishes to fall back on. Instead, he props his elbows on the table, folds his hands, and rests his chin on them. Looking between each of the Nein – the unfamiliar faces stand out, but it’s clear which one is N-Veth and which one with Mister Clay.

“Well then. Such generosity and fine hospitality. A rare commodity this far north.” He pauses for effect. “And not lightly shared, I suspect.”

Caleb clears his throat. “It is not a hardship.”

The others don’t seem especially inclined to speak to him, letting Caleb do all the work, and more than ever he is interested in knowing just what it was that they supposedly discussed that he wouldn’t have liked. Molly focuses his gaze on Beau, curious to see what his might be able to discern behind her stormy glare and crossed arms.

Arching a brow, he tilts his head. “Is that so?”

Beau’s glare deepens. “You know what they say.” She finally breaks the silence. “Keep your friends close.”

It’s the part she leaves off that Molly knows matters. Barking a laugh, more out of pain than the harshness he’s trying to project, Molly sits back, spreading his arms out to his sides. “Friends, yes. What was it you said? Any friends of Lucien’s are friends of yours?”

There’s a dangerous twitch in Beau’s jaw, but Cree’s twitching tale has settled, curling around his own. One step forward, two steps back.

“Well,” says Fjord and Molly almost breaks, because Fjord…doesn’t sound like Fjord. At all. “We do have…history together, after all.”

“Do we?”

“So, you don’t remember us? Like, not even a little bit?” Jester sounds the same as ever and it pierces through all the armor he’s tried and failed to raise.

“Your…friend.” The pause is more for himself than for anyone else’s sake. His throat threatens to close up around the words. “The person you knew, he’s gone. I…am not him.” Molly doesn’t know how many more times he can stand to say it. “Memories are…fickle…”

“So, you’re not even curious a little bit?” And even though she looks nothing like Nott, Veth’s voice is the same as ever.

“No.” He most certainly is not curious about the other person that is a part of him, but he is curious about them. About where they have been and what they have done. There was no space for such a conversation the night before and he’s not sure when there might be again.

The one called Caduceus tilts his head, narrow his eyes, but says nothing.

Finally, he lets his sights fall on Yasha. She’s…different. The same, but different. Well, they all are in some ways, but with Yasha, Yasha whom he knows and loves better than any other, he can see the subtler differences. She holds herself differently, for one. Where once her strong shoulders rounded inwards, they now sit stiff, her back straight. But her gaze is as plaintive and penetrating as ever.

“Now I’ve asked your wizard,” Molly begins, addressing the whole group. “And he…declined to give me an answer. Why are you here? What’s your purpose in Eiselcross?”

There’s a period of silence and then a few people start to hem and haw, but it’s Yasha whose voice he singles out from the cacophony.

“I just want my friend back.”

Yes, Molly thinks. I want me back, too.

Only Veth verbally agrees, but none of the rest can give any straight answer as to their purpose. It’s Fjord who reiterates what Caleb had the night before, when still he thought that Molly was Lucien, about their job and their pay and their path. All very typical, and even if Molly knows that they’re there for him (because Caleb had said as much), it still hurts to hear the platitudes they’d offer to some ignorant stranger.

“Well, if you’re in search of a path…” Take my offer. Take it. Please. “You’re welcome to follow.”

“Follow.” Caleb speaks again, holding the thread tight.

“If you like. Never know what you’re going to find up here. It’s only going to get stranger.” And that much, at least, is most assuredly the truth.

Caleb heaves a sigh, and the nervous light in his eyes looks so real that Molly wonders for a moment if Caleb’s just an excellent actor, or if he’s not actually faking anything at all. Jealousy wars with worry – it would be so nice if Caleb could teach him a few tricks to help keep up the charade, but he’s so convincing that Molly is beginning to feel uneasy.

As soon as he’s able, Molly vows that he’ll meet with Caleb again, privately. As soon as he’s able, he’ll beg – dignity be damned – for the reassurances he so desperately needs right now, and cannot have.

Bartosz interrupts his pity party, bearing on his tail a meat pie, as requested, which he takes and bites into with practiced delicacy, slow and deliberate, his sharp incisors highlighted in the action. One step forward, two steps back.

“And if we do follow, will we be all….traveling together?” Veth asks, eyeing him cautiously.

Desperation nearly destroys subterfuge, but at the last moment, Molly’s willpower holds. “No. Larger group, larger target. I’m sure you appreciate the consideration.” He cocks his head to the side. “But perhaps if you manage to keep up we might…camp together.” With arms wide, he gestures to the tower at large. “Miraculous, isn’t it? How useful wizards can be.”

Once more, Caduceus Clay narrows his eyes. “Excuse me, but, you spend two years – two years – with these people, making memories…and you don’t want to know? Don’t claim that as your own?”

Coldly, Molly levels his gaze. Just once more. Just one more time. Say it. “No.” Something sparks inside him and he sets the pie down; little pieces of meat clinging to the edge of the single bite. “Why should I? I know who I am. Whatever your…friend…did or didn’t do is of no consequence to me. The past doesn’t matter. We have much more important destinations. If you’re not inclined to come, far be it from me to force you.”

Then, casual as ever, he forces himself to lift the pie and take another bite. The crust is perfectly flakey, the meat tender, the gravy perfectly seasoned, but to his tongue, it’s sour and rotting. Molly chews and swallows all the same. No one offers a retort. Tense silence falls over them all instead.

“We’ll be thanking you for breakfast and shelter and then we’ll be off to, well…” He smiles wickedly to hide his ignorance. “You’ll see. If you can keep up, that is.”

Beau snorts and even Fjord looks back unimpressed by his posturing, but Caleb fixes him with a carefully blank stare. He gives no hint, provides Molly no extra sense of security, but it is enough to feel those cool blue eyes piercing into him. Once more, Molly gathers his resolve and his meat pie and stands. “I think I’ll finish this on the way out. That is, if we’re free to go.”

It’s less implicitly a question and more a challenge. Instantly, Fjord scoffs. “I don’t think any of us are under the impression that we could stop you, frankly.”

“Until later then.”

He swings one leg back over the bench when Yasha stands abruptly.

“Wait. Just a moment. I-I have something. You gave it to me.” From the pack at her side, she fishes out the book and Molly feels it as keenly as a dagger in the gut – the kind that lets you linger on. The kind that doesn’t finish your quickly enough. “You-he-you gave this to me. When I was low. You said it would bring me extra luck and it has. So…” She trails away, her hand outstretched.

Thrust through time at the speed of light, Molly remembers.

Green, extensive fields of green. Light and joy. Elation! Effervescent.

Yasha-dear, I found your luck! Maybe life’ll be a little better with it.

A smile, small, but blinding, the sun through the clouds.

You’re my luck, Molly.

And you’re my charm, Yash.

Breathing feels more impossible than ever. Molly has to remind himself to take breaths in and expel them afterwards, but he reaches out and takes the clover from her, twirling it in his fingers just as he had when he’d first presented her with it.

“A…fine gesture, to be sure. We could all use some luck on the road ahead.”

More than Yasha might ever know. Nimbly, he tucks the clover into his coat, takes the meat pie in hand and with a duck of his head, swans out of the dining chamber, the Tomb Takers following behind him, disciples to a prophet who can no longer remember the path down which he leads them.

The before them is cruel, and Molly cannot help but think of his friends, on what they might discuss. On what they might not discuss.

On what they might decide in his absence.

What he thought was relief is now a curse, because now that he knows they’re out there, now that he’s spoken with them, connected with them, he finds that while they’re the distraction he wanted, instead of relief, he’s only more nervous and his desperation has only gotten worse.

More than anything, Molly wishes - once a moment, every moment - since he left the tower, that he’d asked Caleb to tell Yasha, or that he’d gone to her himself. Now it’s too late, and he can only live with the regret and uncertainty that that choice has begotten.

They stride onward, into the base of the frozen mountain range. The going is slow. Slower, even, and while things are mostly okay, the weather worsens later in the evening and they’re forced to take shelter earlier than usual. Out of all that’s happened, the only good thing about it is that it’s saved him from further talking to Cree. They’re never that talkative while walking, too predisposed with paying attention to the unforgiving environment through which they trek; even though it’s clear that the Tomb Takers are no rookies in the art of icy tundra trekking, it's their focus which indicates their acumen.

But now, night upon them, that focus transfers to a new target: himself.

Cree smiles more broadly than ever; for the first time since they set out that morning (or even before, long before) he feels like Cree looks at him and sees what she expects.

“Will they be useful, Lucien?” she asks, as though he has the answers she desires.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” A non-answer is always the most politic of options; after all, what cult leader was prone to giving a straight reply to anything anyways? Cultivating mystique was half the job description as it was. “I’ll be curious to see what they do.” And boy if that isn’t the first time he’s been able to tell the entire truth.

Cree leaves it at that, seemingly satisfied and the rest of the Tomb Takers make light conversation around the fire.

It’s not a natural fire, just an arcane one, and oddly, he finds it more dissatisfying here in the arctic than he did before they came to Eiselcross. In the North, there’s only one scent. Cold. That cold had an odour wasn’t something Molly’d known before, but he knows it now. It’s crisp and void, like eating celery, but with his nose and not his mouth. Scentless is in and of itself its own scent. And it is for this reason that he so disdains the arcane fire.

No wood crackles to fill the eerie sounds of the empty landscape. No ash and smoke coat his hair or his lungs, spiced and sparking against the raw chill of the air he inhales. When there was vegetation and dirt and all number of other scents in the air, it didn’t seem to matter as much if Caleb built a fire from magic, but in the stark clean cold of the winter weather, the absence of that one normal thing agitates the fragile truce Molly’s made with his nerves.

Everything here feels as empty as he did when first he crawled from his lonesome grave. And emptiness is so much more terrible when it is also vast and unending. He’s so small in comparison to the world, and he hasn’t even a stitch of his usual armor left to shield him from that lingering existential fear. The mountains are a fortress in the middle of the white whirling void, a darker, deeper black even than that of the night sky.

The arcane fire cannot warm a chill that’s more pervasive than the physical constraints of the body. And not even the tiny flickering spark that is the hope Caleb embodies can reignite the flames of Molly’s confidence.

His every tactic has come to naught. Every bright flashy outfit, every sparkling jingling gem, every shining smile and raucous cackle will inevitably be consumed in the red light that seeps out from under his own skin, the hidden malefactor asleep in the cage of his ribs, fractured and cracked from that last encounter with death.

No one bothers him that night, and if he spends longer than usual looking into the blinding flame instead of seeking sleep, no one calls him on his folly either.


	2. 2 | Spark

2 | Spark

Caleb Widogast is no stranger to the burden of secrets. Neither was Bren Aldric Ermendrud when he lived, though sometimes, Caleb wonders if he lives still, buried deep and frozen within the glaciers of time and memory, waiting, like the undead travelers they’d found on their first day’s travel away from A5. The Tomb Takers moved at a fairly rapid pace, but they’d done their best to keep up regardless, moving on in relative denial of everything else that had happened. Mostly, they remained silent, just focusing on getting where they were going. Then, however, had come the ice worm cum tortoise cum turtle, which set the Nein back even further. As far as distractions went, it was more than a warranted one, but all the same, he worried about the future of their conversations regarding just what exactly to do about _Lucien_.

Or rather, what to do about Mollymauk.

The memory from the night before replays in crystalline perfection in Caleb’s memory as they continue to trudge through the snow with Dagen in the lead, trying to gain on the Tomb Takers and Molly as much as they can manage without thoroughly exhausting themselves in the process.

Even if his mind was incapable of accepting it, his eyes could see the truth as it was unveiled on Mollymauk’s face; sheer desperation had been laid plain there, hope and terror, desire and fright, each warring won with the other in hopes of a lifeline, a drowning man beyond hope spotting a boat on the horizon. Acute and awful, Caleb remembers Molly’s face.

Would that such an expression were never carved into those once carefree features again, Caleb thought, he might have done anything to spare Mollymauk what little innocence he’d had left before his untimely death upon Lorenzo’s glaive. He’d been bright and vibrant and shining, all the things Bren had been, and none of the things Caleb is.

And now, in the memory of Mollymauk’s wide, shining eyes, Caleb can already see that light fading away.

With each passing moment they waste, Mollymauk grows farther and farther from them, even though he’s physically closer than he’s been since that night on the Glory Run Road. And Caleb can do _nothing_ about it. He’s so lost in his thoughts, that he’s silent for a good majority of the polymorph discussion until he’s being called up to voice his opinion and provide a round of the spell.

Gladly, he gives his consent; being an eagle (while not nearly so freeing mentally as it is to be, say, a bat, or an ancient lizard of towering proportions) soothes all the worries that usually hold court in his brain twenty-four/seven. So it’s blessed relief, more desirable than all the warmth the tower has to offer even in the face of high and bitter winds that batter at him from seemingly all directions.

But the reprieve is too short lived, for as soon as they touchdown and turn back, all the worry rushes to the forefront of his mind once again. In silence, he rebuilds the tower with his magic, paying special attention to the details of Mollymauk’s room now that he knows the truth.

Just because Mollymauk isn’t there, doesn’t mean that he can’t prepare ( _frantic, frightened, hopeful_ ) for a future where he will be.

Cold, still shivering from the elements, they file into the tower. Dagen, as usual, wastes no time in rocketing himself upward through the iris and the others follow suit. It helps, making this place special _for them_. It feels less like he’s treating himself better than he deserves and more like he’s spoiling his friends instead.

And no one deserves to be more spoiled than Mollymauk will be.

If they don’t completely botch the thing before his true nature can be revealed to the group, that is.

Conversation is minimal in Dagen’s presence, and falsely cheery. In all their eyes, Caleb can see the strain of the current situation, save, well Caduceus, who watches them all with a different kind of concern. When his penetrating gaze lands on Caleb, Caleb looks away. It’s too soon, too raw, too close. It always has been.

Beau with her homages, Yasha’s sad mumbles, often ignored, Jester’s insistence that he was more than he ever was… What will Molly think of them, Caleb wonders, when he finally gets a chance to see the carnage he’d unintentionally wrought with his death? How they’ve misremembered him over time, ascribing him into the role of the centripetal force that keeps the Nein bound to one another, their circle moving through the world at a careening pace.

And only destiny seems to know where they will land.

Destiny.

There’s another player on the board, another player Caleb had failed to see in his hubris. Failed to believe mattered. But what else can it be that’s led them here after all this time? That has brought Mollymauk back into their orbit so insistently, and just in the nick of time?

What else, if not destiny?

The thought is simultaneously terrifying and electrifying to contemplate.

Finally, Dagen leaves the table with a cat masseur to aid him on his route to sleep and the Nein are left in peace. A misnomer if ever there was one, for there is no peace to be had between their number. And there won’t be until they can count Mollymauk one of their number again. Against the confines of his promise, the truth strains to be let free.

Instead, they talk of questions and Vess DeRogna’s body held encased in his Amber, and of Cree, found snooping about amongst the mages’ things, of Aeor and destinations and items to be procured.

Of trust and mistrust.

But not of Mollymauk.

Caduceus’s brow is furrowed low, his jaw set; Caleb looks away once more, gaze finding his hands in his lap, his weißwurst long forgotten.

“I think we’re uh, well, we’re talking around the point here, don’t you?” Caduceus asks, looking around presumptively.

“What do you mean?” Fjord stares back with mirrored expression, though his confusion is more evident than Caduceus’, whose usually mellow expressions are trending serious, even irate.

Caduceus huffs, looking between each of them with long, heavy consideration, as though weighing his words carefully. “You were asked why we’re here. Why we decided to stick around, to invite them in, to follow instead of fight now that Vess DeRogna is dead. And not one of you had a good answer. You’re all…I can’t say we talked about this before, because when I brought it up you all avoided the question.”

Folding her arms over her chest, Beau leans back in her chair and Caleb is momentarily grateful that he knows the truth. Because if he didn’t, he knows where his own mind had been, how he and Beauregard had argued.

“We’re here to stop him. I thought we settled that. Whatever _Lucien_ is up to is bad news. If this really is that city thing from our Vokodo vision, well, fuck Caduceus, wasn’t it you who wanted us to handle that?”

Lips thinning, Caduceus frowns. “That wasn’t-“

But Veth cuts him off. “No, I thought we were here for Molly?” With a quick jerk of her head she looks to Yasha as if for support.

Beau opens her mouth, ready to fire back, but Caleb swallows down every discomfort. He owes it to Molly. Molly who picked _him_ to keep this secret, to help him from the shadows.

“We may as well lay it out plain. Caduceus is right and so is Veth.” He lets no waver into his tone, can’t afford it when Beau is gaping at him, eyes bright with fury and almost betrayal. “Not a one of us can deny that when we first found his grave empty, we hoped. Not _one_ of us. No matter how much you might protest. And I-“ his words strangle, but he forges ahead. “Stop _lying_ to yourselves. We’re here because we want him back and anything else is adjacent. My interests in the transmundane arcane experiments, your desire to stop something evil, or even just the fact that we were hired and promised coin. We chose to be altruistic because of _him_. And he wasn’t even an altruist. So don’t pretend that we’re only continuing on this path because it’s the right thing. We are all selfish bastards at heart. We lost him, and as little likely as it looks to be possible to get him back, you cannot deny that in your heart, you yearn for it. I am done with avoidance. I am done with pretending.” He shakes his head, because suddenly the words no longer feel for show. “Fate is something I have never believed in, and yet, here we are, chasing a ghost, all our threads intertwining here, for better or worse. We did not accept Lady DeRogna’s offer because we thought it would lead to Molly. We had already agreed to do so before that. Whether we had scryed on his grave or not, visited and found him long gone, we would be in this same place, right now, having this same discussion. Fate has brought us back into the orbit of the person who was once our friend and we have stayed here because we failed him once and now we owe it to him to do what we could not before.”

Only when he’s done does he realize he’s standing, though when it happened, he’s not sure.

Everyone is staring at him, though their expressions vary, and he isn’t sure what to do now that the deluge of words has stemmed to a trickle.

There’s a scraping, and suddenly, Yasha is standing, too.

“I want my friend back,” she says, plaintive, and Caleb feels the slightest shadow of shame; she said it before, and they’d all talked over her. He’s a hypocrite, and he knows it, because if Molly had not confronted him, he too would still be avoiding the truth. But none of that matters, because Molly _is_ out there and he needs them more than any of the rest know.

Her words echo in the uncomfortable silence and she bites her lip before sitting back down, quite once again.

“But, what if it’s not possible?” Jester’s voice trembles with worry. “What if…what if he is gone, like Lucien said?”

“We can’t operate on the assumption that we can get him back,” Beau retorts, and it’s not precisely support, but neither is it outright antagonistic.

“That’s a fair enough point, Beauregard,” Caduceus says, ever the mediator. “I don’t know your friend. And I don’t know what you all went through with him to bring you to this point. But I know grief and I know healing. And none of you have healed. None of you have dealt with this. With _him_. And now that this… Nonagon is walking around wearing his face, you’re all…unsteady again. Like your moorings have been cut.” An earnest expression grips him, and his voice takes on an impassioned tone. “I’ve watched you all grow and find your footing, your places where you fit, with one another, in your own skins, in the world. I’m proud of all of you for how far you’ve come. For how much you’ve done for one another since we met. But you can’t ignore this. All it took was just the hint of your friend to put you all off your balance. You’re all over the place right now. You’re not…” Heavily Caduceus sighs and no one, not even Beau (whose glower is far closer to a wavering tremble now) dares to speak. The minutes clock by, and they _are_ minutes; Caleb counts each agonizing one before he finally breaks.

“We cannot afford to be in conflict amongst ourselves if we want to have any hope of succeeding in preventing what is on track to occur. So ja, perhaps this ‘Eyes of Nein’ should be our focus, but what if…what if we end up fighting them. What would you do, Beauregard?” Caleb singles her out, perhaps unfairly, but he stifles down the shame of hypocrisy that still threatens to bubble up within him. “Are you ready to strike him down in the heat of battle? Are you ready to believe Molly such a lost cause that you would have us start down this path meant to prevent their goal when it almost ensures that we will come to blows? In the moment, can any of us say that we would not hesitate to attack him?”

“He’s _not_ Molly, Caleb. You have to face that.”

Throat tight, secret a vice grip on his neck, Caleb swallows back the truth. “But what if he still could be?”

“I can’t-“ Furious now, tears beading at the corners of her eyes, Beau leaps up. The moment hangs, tense as her features contort, precarious on the edge that Caleb has pushed her to. But further argument doesn’t come.

Without another word, Beau flies from the room.

Caleb closes his eyes. In his heart, all he finds is regret. It’s familiar. Just another one to add to the heaping pile that continues to fester there no matter how many good things he does, nor how many good things happen to or because of him.

Nothing he ever does is right.

Long uncomfortable silences are fast being their new thing. It’s ages before Jester, timidly, speaks.

“I don’t think we should talk about this anymore without Beau.” Though she says it, Caleb can hear in her voice that there’s no conviction in her words. It’s only further evidenced by the fact that she keeps talking anyways. “I want to get Molly back, but I’m just afraid that we can’t. What if we can’t? It seems so…” she bites her lip hard. “Difficult. Like, he just… I just thought he would…he would see us and-“ Her breath hitches and she ducks her head into her hands.

“Remember,” Veth finishes for her. “Well, I guess that wasn’t very realistic of us. But…that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still _try_. I thought Yeza was…but we got him! And Caleb, you made me _me_ again! So many things I thought would be impossible we’ve made happen!” Expression animated, Veth beams at Yasha. “Yasha, you have your wings! Did you ever think that could happen?”

Shyly, Yasha shakes her head.

“And Jester, you found your dad! Like, how unbelievable is it that we literally _found your absentee dad by accident?!_ Or that thing you did with the cupcake and the hag! Like, _wow!_ It was unbelievable! Fjord, you dumped Uk’otoa! You’ve kept him locked away! We helped _end a war_! We’ve done all this crazy stuff, guys, and we did it _together_. And when it wasn’t us there were just too many coincidences for it _not_ to be fate.” Pleadingly she looks over all of them. “I know I say it a lot.” Her hands twist in the fabric of her skirt and she looks down at her lap for a moment before glancing back up, new fervor on her face. “So, it probably doesn’t have the impact it ought to anymore, but Caleb’s right! If it’s even the tiniest bit possible, we have to try, don’t we?”

Fjord grimaces. “None of this is easy. What even is there to…to bring back? If Molly was always part of Lucien, how would we even go about it? Where would we even _start?_ Yes, we found a way to make you you again, Veth, and we ended a war, and we’re holding back a demi-god, but this is…a _soul_. And the Tomb Takers are clearly more powerful than us. He _killed_ Vess DeRogna just by looking at her. We have _no_ idea what they did to bring him back in the first place and I highly doubt that anyone is going to be willing to share.”

It seems stupid to hide it, the more they converse and debate. Stupid to pretend that Molly isn’t desperately hinging his every hope and prayer on their devotion to his friendship. But just when Caleb is about to fling caution to the wayside, Caduceus, who has quietly observed in the time since the conversation snowballed away from him, looks up, determined.

“One way or another, you need to make a decision about how to move forward here. Obviously it’s a tender subject. Whatever you decide, I’ll support, but as a group, you need to come to a consensus of sorts. I can’t do that for you.”

“You’re part of this group too, Caduceus,” Fjord replies, concern lacing his tone, but Caduceus only shakes his head.

“Molly was your friend. That makes what to do here your decision, not mine.” His expression softens. “Whatever you choose, I’ll be here to help you through it. Maybe it’s best for now if everyone got some sleep. In the morning, we can talk more.”

It feels more like a gentle order than a suggestion and one by one, however exhausted and reluctant, they rise from the table and head back to their rooms until only Caduceus and Caleb are left.

“Something on your mind, Mister Caleb?”

It’s all the permission he needs, recalling Mollymauk’s own implicit instruction to let their new cleric friend in on the jig if he should show suspicion. And this, as far as Caleb is concerned, is suspicion enough.

“Please, come with me. I do not wish for us to be disturbed.” 

With a serious nod, Caduceus follows him up to the first level of rooms where Caleb leads him to Molly’s chamber, opening the door cautiously and stepping aside to let his friend within. As soon as Caduceus stands fully inside the room, Caleb closes and locks the door out of an abundance of caution.

“Oh,” Caduceus says, looking around. “This all for him?”

“Ah, ja, but that is not what we need to discuss.”

Caduceus only hums. “You know something that the others don’t. They’re too keyed up to pick up on your change in perspective, but I’m not. What happened when you spoke to him, when none of the rest of us were there?”

“I told you and the rest everything that had passed between us, but that was not the only time we spoke.”

To his credit, Caduceus doesn’t even bat an eye.

“He came…at night. To my room. He told me that he is not Lucien at all…that he is…”

“Mollymauk.”

“Ja.”

With a solemn and considering nod, Caduceus sits down, wordlessly inviting Caleb to join him.

“He wants to keep it a secret. Well-“ Caleb bites his lip. “Perhaps that is not accurate. He does not want to keep it secret, but he believes he must. He is…he _is_ Mollymauk. I just… I could tell. But he is much changed too. What he has been through without us, for however long that may be…” Again Caleb trails off. There’s just too much. Too much that cannot be put into words, for words can never describe the way it felt when Caleb realized that the unfamiliar expression in Molly’s eyes was that of terror. Genuine, all-encompassing fear.

It doesn’t belong there. With all his being, Caleb had yearned to reach out and smooth it away. To press innocence back into what had once been wondering eyes.

“I understand.” Weight saturates Caduceus’ low voice, dropping it to an even deeper register. Exhaustion settles in the lines at his mouth. “He _wants_ us to take him and run. But he knows he can’t do that. And neither would we.”

_Aber möchten wir dass machen?_

Perhaps Caduceus would, but the others?

Deep down, Caleb’s not sure. And maybe, maybe that’s why. It’s why Molly chose him. Why he’s kept Molly’s secret. Because Molly must have known that if he told anyone other than Caleb, he’d be too easily swayed into just up and disappearing, leaving everything in the wind.

Or is it?

What difference would it make if they simply ran? The Tomb Takers are useless without him as it is, and Molly had vehemently opposed anything to do with his past, so much so that his choice to face it seems less and less like Molly at all and more and more like Caleb’s been played for a fool.

A sentimental, softhearted, _Blödian_.

Throat tight, Caleb swallows.

“Caduceus, I am…I am no longer sure I was right.”

He looks up to see Caduceus blink long and slow at him in consideration. Absurdly, Caleb is reminded of a cat.

“Well. Whoever he is, I don’t think he’s Lucien. And I didn’t need you to tell it to me. He was lying. A lot.”

Caleb cannot help the laugh that bites bitterly from him. “Ja, well, Mollymauk was never a very good liar, and this person had us all convinced.”

Caduceus’ lips thin, a pitying smile spreading slowly over them. “You only saw what you expected. You knew him, and I didn’t. Don’t think so hard about it. Just, feel. If it was really Mollymauk, no matter what out of character choice he made in front of you, I don’t think you would mistake him. You’re not exactly the most trusting individual, pardon my saying so. So if you trusted him then, well, something tells me that you can trust your instinct.”

It is almost too much to feel the softness of Caduceus’ infinite kindness, and Caleb turns away.

“People change, Caleb. Maybe Mister Mollymauk spent enough time hiding who he was that he realized he couldn’t move forward unless he broke this chain first. We all have chains. Shackles we bond ourselves to, or that others bond to us. And the only person who can do something about those fetters is you. You know?”

He does.

Running only ever got him so far. Running doesn’t solve anything, no matter how easy it is to do.

Always, inevitably, the past catches up with you.

And Caleb knows that far more intimately with every step, every job, every dip and twist and turn that they make on their path.

Only Molly had ever rejected the past and now, for his folly, it seems that his past, of all, might be one of the most dangerous of all. Hubris in the making. A fate with which Caleb is far too familiar.

He thinks, briefly, of all of them. Or Fjord and his hope that everything would be over after the Volcano at Uthodurm, of Jester and her endless faith the Traveler, of Beau and her father, and her father’s history. Of Veth, insisting they needn’t go to Felderwin. Of Yasha, walking straight into her near doom.

Of himself, high on youth and power and glory and _Patriotismus_.

They’d all run away from the truth, and big or small, terrible or worrisome, and in the end, it had nearly destroyed each of them. And they’d persevered, each choosing, in the end, to confront the problem at hand.

But Molly had been alone. Isolated, amongst people he did not trust, frightened, and forsaken.

Stronger than all of them, he’d chosen to forge ahead.

Out of character, perhaps for the person he had been, but now?

Caleb doesn’t know.

Perhaps it will not be so hard to keep the Nein from realizing the truth after all. Perhaps, had Molly stood before Yasha that night and told her that he wasn’t going to run from Lucien’s past, she might not have recognized the friend for whose return she had so desperately longed nigh on a year.

“I don’t know your friend,” Caduceus says again. “But I know this. When he looked at you, he couldn’t hide all of his smile. I still saw it. In his eyes.”

Caleb doesn’t trust much. He doesn’t trust himself most days, or others. He doesn’t trust that the war is truly over, or that they are always making the right decisions. And he certainly doesn’t quite believe it when his friends tell him that he’s a good person.

But Caleb trusts Caduceus implicitly.

Never once has he been wrong about something like this. So Caleb takes his fears and anxieties and hands them over like an offering to Caduceus’ understanding gaze, and puts their fate in his hands.

“Tell me what I should do.”

But Caduceus only smiles, a little sharp, and little cruel, for as cruel as he ever is. “Only you can do that. Not me. He’s your friend. He trusted you with his secret. And now you have to decide what to do with it. If you want my help guiding the rest, I’ll do what I can, but I can’t make that decision for you.” He stands, but the chair doesn’t scrape back along the floor. No, it’s oddly quiet, as though Caduceus’ movements are muted in the space they share, a shrine to the ghost of possibility and parody and perfidy.

“I’ve only ever provided guidance. And I can continue to do so. If you want me to ask the Wildmother questions, I can. But I don’t think it’s necessary. I think you already know what to do. And don’t need my permission or anyone else’s to do it.”

Permission.

A dangerous word.

Permission led him to kill his parents.

Permission led him to torture and maim in the name of king and country.

Permission. Or choice.

Both dangerous, but only one is his for the taking.

“We follow. We keep his secret. We-“ Another harsh swallow. “ _I_ trust him.”

In all the years he’s lived, only once before has he ever felt something similar. Like he’s carving out his heart and giving it into someone else’s care. There’s no going back now.

Quietly, Caduceus leaves Caleb alone in Mollymauk’s room. He does not leave until it’s late, so late it is early and he knows that he will suffer for it on the morrow. Nevertheless, the acknowledgement doesn’t stop him from staring at the card, the Moon facing out at him like the mocking smile of a carny so easily enamored he stumbled over his own name.

Little by little, quietly, in the isolation of that garish tower room, Caleb allows himself something more dangerous than permission or trust altogether.

For the first time since they unearthed Mollymauk’s grave at Glory Run Road, Caleb allows himself the most dangerous drug of all.

Hope.

The world turns. Snow and sleet and ice bombard them day in and day out. The air, even when clear, is hostile, freezing in their lungs making it difficult to breathe., but still they soldier on. It is less difficult now, keeping the secret, than Caleb thought it would be. He’s good at it, he knows, always has been, but something that felt so impossibly enormous weighed more heavily than he’d anticipated. Sharing the burden with Caduceus helps, but not nearly so much as the hope does.

It’s been so long since he really _hoped_ for or about anything that he feels uncommonly light at the reminder. While conjuring the memory of Molly’s distressed expression does wonders for his drive, it is the recollection of his relief that spurs Caleb forward the most.

It is in that face that Caleb can see the truth.

Molly needs him. Molly _chose_ him. And without him, Molly is lost.

Much of their time is taken up with simply managing the weather. Luckily, the mountains seem less liable to contain the worms that find their home in the tundra, and instead, their torment is in managing rocky cliffs, unstable ground and the still bitter wind. Even with his scarf wrapped around his head and neck, loose hairs somehow manage to escape their fetters, whipping him uncommonly hard across the cheeks; for how little they are, the sting is unbearable. His lips are chapped and raw, but his hands are warm in his gloves, stuffed under his armpits while he walks, hugging himself across the chest for warmth. Yasha courses far ahead of even Dagen, and he feels the smallest pang of empathy – she doesn’t and cannot know the truth, and maybe they will hate him for it at first, but no longer will he regret doing what needs to be done.

Still, they make light as best they can, sledding down hill when Dagen says it is the only way to proceed. Caleb, however, is not above flying himself down instead of risking his neck for a bit of a thrill. That is just a bit of common sense.

But as they continue to walk, he finds himself more and more perturbed by the prospect of what they might be heading for. Of what it is, precisely, that Lucien and his cult were after.

At what danger Molly walks headlong into, alone with the very band of people he fears.

The vision from Vokodo haunts him, and the memory of Vess DeRogna as Molly had reached out and simply liquified her brain before dropping like a puppet to the ground in a pool of his own red blood. While Molly may be keen to see this through so that it might never haunt him again, Caleb is certain that he is the only one between them who is interested in knowing more about _Lucien_. About just exactly what kind of power Molly unwittingly channels through his veins.

Mentally, the kinship Caleb feels with him grows with each thought, every consideration. Not for the first time, Caleb wonders what Mollymauk would say about Bren. If he’d even let Caleb explain. Before, he’d thought for sure that it would have been brushed off. Molly hadn’t wanted to know his own history, and if anyone else’s history mattered, well, that would have meant that his had too. And Caleb had never blamed him for that perspective. He’d only shared what he had in Zadash to Veth and Beau because he’d still been operating on the basis of a transactional friendship back then. Given the belief that he’d had a choice, that Beau would have simply indulged him, Caleb can’t be sure he ever would have said anything to them all as a whole in Felderwin.

What was it that had so jarred Mollymauk – aside from waking in the grave, and oh, but Caleb had cringed when he realized that they’d done to Molly what the Tomb Takers had done to Lucien – that led him to be so certain that Lucien was bad news?

Perhaps some lingering remnant in his brain, unformed, ethereal, or maybe the sickness he felt in his blood that begat his abilities; somehow, Caleb knows implicitly that no matter how much Molly has changed, the answer to that question will forever be off limits.

So the scenarios that Caleb tries to imagine wherein he confesses the entirety of his terrible sins to Molly and begs for he knows not what - nor why, for Molly, of them all, would once have been the first to wave them away and Caleb still isn’t sure how he feels about that, the idea that his transgressions don’t matter – fade when they get to the part where this new, harder, and simultaneously more desperate Mollymauk stares down at him with an expression that is undefinable in any language, Common, Zemnian, or otherwise.

It seems that his response remains a mystery, even with him risen once more from the grave. But Caleb is patient, and so he focuses on different things instead, like what spells he might have to study in the coming days and how best to take down Cree if it comes to it. For among them, despite the stature of the Goliath, the terrible sly look of the halfling, or the dark glare of the human, it is she who holds the most power among them all.

It is she whom Mollymauk fears, second only to Lucien.

And that prospect, fighting _Lucien_ , is one Caleb knows he will have to consider before long, no matter how little he desires to do so.

Because if they have to fight Lucien, that means he’s still there, somewhere. Part of Mollymauk. Which would mean fighting Molly, and Caleb meant what he said the day before, about hesitating to fire against him.

Bitterly, humourlessly Caleb laughs at his mental choice of words.

 _Fire_.

A vivid recollection hits him, Molly’s open palm across his cheek, worse than the stinging bite of Caleb’s hair in the wind. _Time for that later_.

Soundlessly, not that it would matter, for all sound is swallowed in the wind, Caleb mouths a thank you to the Molly preserved perfectly in his memory.

It’s funny, this memory of his. In school, he’d discovered that he had his limits. Over time, things were prone to fading if he didn’t look them over or spend time in a place or with a person on a regular basis. But along with knowing his limits came the ability to…circumvent them.

For Mollymauk, he’d done that exact thing. (He could not do so for his parents; when he’d come out of his fugue, it had been too long and any chance at keeping them pristine in his memory forever was forfeit long, long before.) He’d spent a day, once a month, recalling, writing down, sketching a bit even, however rudimentary, for he was no artist like Jester. There was so little could be done to honour him, but somehow, Caleb had felt that he wouldn’t have minded the lack of ceremony. It was memory that was more important anyways. Though memory, Caleb had been able to keep him alive, if only for himself. The others…well…he hadn’t wanted to talk about it either, so he didn’t begrudge them their silence.

Every once in a while – lately Veth especially, and he wonders a bit at that, though he has thus far refrained from asking – someone would mention him, or reference him. Jester, on Darktow. Beau with her tattoo. Fjord and the Summer’s Dance, for as long as that had lasted.

But Caleb held him alive in his memory, piecemeal, painstaking, recreated. And now, seeing him, that mental image is no longer perfect. So he takes the sides he has seen and tries to fit them together.

It doesn’t work.

Too much time has passed. Too much has happened without them.

He yearns for the first time for Molly and the Tomb Takers to catch up, to have Molly with them instead of away from them, no matter how much more dangerous it is together than apart. At least then, he could take better stock of the new angles that are carved into his friend and memorize them just as surely as he can.

Just in case.

They’re a few days of travel in when the stone circle catches their attention.

It’s asymmetric, considering the greatly varying heights of the individuals within it, but Caleb’s less interested in the races depicted and more intrigued by the magic that the seeming stone permutes. It’s not like anything he’s seen before – which is saying something, since what he saw back at A2 was also unlike anything he’d ever seen before.

And while he’s curious, it has him on edge. The emerald was one thing.

This…this is another. And now, he’s not so sure he’s willing to risk whatever the cost may be.

But they’re the Mighty Nein, and so, inevitably, after dicking around like the Arschlöcher they are, they risk it anyways.

Jester stands in the center of the circle, eyes a soft blue glow of power and then, visible, she jerks back and time flicks forward like they’re on pause and she’s on fast forward. Her horns spiral out from her skull into gorgeous g’s on either side of her head and Caleb is filled with infinite sadness as he realizes what’s happening.

When Jester staggers out, seemingly unharmed by the process, but more concerned by her vision, he tries as best he can to feel relieved. It doesn’t work, so instead he distracts himself from her appearance and from the intense way Fjord’s eyes follow her, and focuses on the circle as she shares the information they’d provided.

There’s a draw within him. A terrible, terrible draw.

He takes a step forward. Two. Three. Suddenly, a hand is on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.

“No, Caleb. We have what we need. Don’t risk it.”

Jester.

(Always her presence soothes, drawing him forth from the darkness of his thoughts. She is a wonder.)

Heavily, he sighs, staring at it, the swirl of questions in his mind and endless cloud. And how many years would they take for the price of such information as that which he seeks? A decade? Two? With a blink, the stone circle gone, and the self he’d imagined in that brief moment - silver at the temples, wrinkles at his eyes – vanishes.

Something in Caleb knows that that chance once lost, is lost forever.

But they’re not empty handed for it, even if it cost Jester some time.

When he tells her she looks lovely, there’s only kindness behind his words. Other things grip his mind.

The district of Aoer, _Cognouza._ The _Somnovem_ , its council, the magic they’d used to flee, the _devious intent_ with which they supposedly walk. The vision of Lucien – of Molly – striding through the snow.

Lingering doubt catches raw at the edges of his heart and he beats it away hastily, Caduceus’ words in his ear.

Doubt has no place in a plan that must be carefully arranged and executed lest it end in ruin and Caleb will not be the one to let it creep in like a thief in the night. Not when Mollymauk is on the line and he is practically the only one standing there beside him.

Metaphorically.

That night, while the others disperse to their private chambers and their private thoughts, Caleb sits once more in Molly’s room staring at the Moon card. He’s never, ever in his whole life had his tarot read or read another’s tarot. The little game he’d played with Astrid and Wulf on New Dawn in school is similar, though less complex. A little wax or melted lead, dripped into a basin to solidify, the shapes within telling the caster’s future. Maybe, someday, he’ll tell Mollymauk of this divination rite, but instead he reaches for the unfamiliar.

Only a few cards within match Molly’s deck. The Magician – and something in him aches to see his own face painstakingly recreated in such miniscule detail – and the Moon are two of them, the rest being the others from the reading Molly had done for Jester so long ago. But the deck is large and full of other cards. Generic, though accurate. He takes them in hand, smoothing them beneath his fingers with consideration and reverence. Not for the art, but for the artist, the wielder of such a powerful weapon that it needed very little effort to entrap, ensnare, wound, or impale.

Beau’s father had been one such easy target.

Tentatively, Caleb shuffles them, careful of the edges despite the fact that they are in fact only tangible at all as a product of his own magic. If he thinks too hard about it, Caleb knows it leads to the infinite and mazelike corners of existentialism into which he’s unprepared this evening to descend.

He closes his eyes, incants – it’s so familiar, this spell, considering how many times he’s had to use it lately - and Molly’s hands are now his own, purple, with pointed talons and a red eye on a snake.

Careful not to look up at any of the mirrors, lest he break this impromptu immersion, Caleb reaches into the deck and picks a card.

For a long time, he simply sits there, holding it out in front of him, the back to his face, its own obscured.

What will he find? What unfathomable message hides within the delicate brushwork and fine inking? What power is there in belief, if not in faith, that he can look down at his own hands and pretend, channel the energy of another in hopes of finding answers for questions Caleb hasn’t yet determined how to ask.

If the world isn’t too big, nor the universe too expansive, to keep Mollymauk Tealeaf away from the Mighty Nein without their coming back into orbit with one another eventually, if fate holds more sway than Caleb ever before believed – for permission or not, the choices he made were his own – then what indeed, did Mollymauk know that others would live a hundred years and never fathom.

Jester’s voice rings in his head.

 _Molly_ knew _things._

Caleb flips over the card. It is his turn now, whether he knows what he is doing or not.

The card staring back at him mocks him mercilessly.

His own features grace its ephemeral form.

The Magician.

In sleep, Caleb dreams.

Not all his dreams start in fire. Not always. Sometimes, they start in the happy home, the daydream of a life that he’d never lived, or rather, never finished living. A life spent in toil, good, hard, earthy work, his hands covered in grime, nails black with rich soil, the spoils of labour in baskets to his side. Beans, mostly. The Ermendrud’s had always grown beans; there was nothing like it, picking one fresh off the vine, the crack as he would split it in half, crisp and watery, the gift of the earth cultivated until perfection and then sacrificed on the altar of hungry bellies and gleeful children’s gnashing pearly-whites. 

In most of these dreams, he is the child. 

In some, the child belongs to him, though those are few and far between. Never once can he recall having wanted to be a father - only to be fathered himself. It was not his father’s absences that affected his youth so much as his presence; when his father was not called away to soldier for King and Country, he’d spent many a day, worn hands guiding Caleb’s own in the work that would someday have been Caleb’s. Nurturing had been in his father’s blood, not soldiering. 

And yet, it was the soldiering that Caleb cleaved to to prove himself. 

Where his father succeeded, Caleb failed. Where Leofric’s hands worked, things grew - recompense, he said, for the lives he’d taken in service. Where Caleb’s hands worked, only ashes fell. But after a burn, soil saturated white with the remnant of fire, the ground always gave forth the greatest yield, refreshed and renewed, the old burned away. 

It was a lesson his father had taught, a lesson Ikithon twisted to his own use. 

A lesson now, Caleb hopes might be set right again. 

That whatever has come from his ashes might be something good. 

But here, now, is Mollymauk. 

In this dream, the field is aflame and Caleb, lanky as ever he was in his youth, runs headlong towards it. Smoke stings at his eyes, singes his hair, but he strides forth, and when he lays his first footfall along the boundary line where the inferno rages, it parts for him to pass, for he is fire, and it is fire and they are one.

The path winds. He follows his feet. On muscle memory alone he finds the route to the center where the shape dances black smoke in the glowing heart. But before he can reach it, he stops, staring into the clearing. 

Blackness, the abyss, streaking in gilt and turquoise and the slow luminescence of a child’s teardrop and there, blinking about the circumference, nine red eyes. 

In the center, the flame sparks anew, the dancing shape coalescing, the reach of a slender arm out from the grave, clawing the air, rending the void in two and suddenly, his form is there, an impossibly empty silhouette against the already dark expanse and there are eighteen instead of just nine. The darkness suffuses in a cold red glow, alien and unfamiliar. They’re all unblinking, all staring, but not at Caleb. At one another. Nine, on nine, reflecting, mirroring, staring. 

And then, Mollymauk catches on fire. 

It wrests Caleb’s breath from him, but there is no sound, no scream, no terror. 

Only flames. Flames in which Molly grows first more impossibly beautiful, before dissolving into ash - not like burning. Not like Caleb's seen in the past. This is different. The emptiness quiets, the eyes vanish, and then, the black is rent in two once again, the same clawing hand reaching forth, and the red eyes blink into existence.

Again. 

And again. 

And again. 

A phoenix, rising and dying. 

Caleb wakes tangled in his sheets, brow feverish, sweat beading his frame. His chest heaves with uncertainty. But in his life, dreams have always been just that. Dreams and nothing more. What good does it do to interpret that which is meaningless? Mollymauk was on his mind when he fell asleep, this time in the bedroom that resembles that of his childhood. Logically, the two would intermesh, the terrors of his past mingling with the concerns of the present. 

Logically. 

Only, Caleb’s not so certain that his dreams are rooted in logic anymore.

That morning, at breakfast, he is quiet, letting the others grumble, grouse, laugh, and groan at one another as they stuff their faces. Not even Veth eyes him with concern, for they’re all caught up in their own performative avoidances. None of them have spoken about _him_ again following Caleb’s outbursts a few days prior, and Beauregard in particular has not spoken to him at all. 

Most mornings, she comes in later than the rest. This is no exception. 

“We’ll make A2 today,” Dagen says to a chorus of acknowledgement from the Nein. “Should be a day or so ahead of your other folks.” 

Slightly, just slight enough that Dagen, enraptured in his breakfast doesn’t notice it, the whole group tenses. 

But there’s nothing Caleb can do or say to change the fact that he’s running out of time to figure out how to manage the situation here without giving away the jig. And Beauregard….Beauregard is a lynchpin, if one that is just out of reach. Not for the first time, he truly thinks of her as his sibling. The sister he wishes he could have had. It’s why they get along so poorly; he’d never known a pair of siblings who didn’t viciously tear at one another's throats when at odds, and viciously tear at someone else’s in defense of their sibling. 

With what little he has to give, Caleb loves Beauregard, and part of him wonders if she will be the only one who could never be convinced to forgive him his lies. 

Molly had died for her, after all. 

And briefly, Caleb wonders, in a moment’s epiphany, if that’s been the problem all along. 

Failure is a hell of a drug. 

On their way out, he catches her by the arm, tugs her in forcefully, though he knows she only lets him do it, however begrudgingly. 

“His death is not your fault. So stop acting like you are the mother of evil here, with Lucien, ja? If we have a snowball’s chance in the Nine Hells, you need to get yourself straightened out, _verstehst_?” 

Beau glares, but his grip doesn’t let up. “Yeah, yeah, I fucking ‘verstehst’. We’ve got to move. Let’s go.” 

At first, it seems as though they’ve come to the wrong place, but Dagen, in his sturdy chair stops a ways back and Caleb understands, implicitly, that the ruins are deep beneath the snow, and that the shifting, unsecured edifices they cannot see are more dangerous that any leg of their travel thus far.

Something flutters in Caleb’s gut, a certain level of excitement that can never be contained when so many mysteries could be unraveled just by their being here; not even his worry over Mollymauk can dull the anticipation of the deep delve below. 

All that initial excitement fades, however, when Caleb almost plummets to his death when they begin the descent. Beau’s arm grasping his own in the only lifeline he has and he looks to her with gratefulness and apology in his features. 

When they make it to the ground, he vows to himself that he will not be so careless again. He cannot afford to die. 

Molly is depending on him. 

Ultimately, the presence of empire researchers is less surprising to Caleb than anything else. He knew there was the likelihood that they’d be here and really, doesn’t matter either way. The little gnome’s presence is negligible. He’ll hide and with any luck if the Tomb Takers do come this way, he won’t be seen, or, even if he is, he might not be killed. Altogether, the fellow is harmless. 

So Caleb writes him off. Deeper still lay the more interesting mysteries of magic and nature and the universe, those secrets cultivated by years of study and an inherent curiosity. It is with abject fascination that Caleb wanders dazedly through the interior’s structural maze, the Nein at his side his only indication of whether or not he’d inadvertently been left behind or wandered off in favour of some more fascinating remnant of this bygone age. 

Still, the same undercurrent, that pinning thread of thrumming power he felt within the Myriad Halls of Halas is present here too. No more mundane, no less energetic, just...subcutaneous to the level within which they are presently traveling. 

Moreso than before, Caleb feels like a trespasser, walking the ghost-streets of an ancient mecca to magic and invention and study. The itch in his arms - always there, though not always persistent - fades to a tingle, like the scurrying sparks of arcane up his arm in little static bursts. 

More treasure in the world is here contained and he wants to know it _all_. 

Through fire and water, through Empire and Dynasty, in blood and in bond, not a one of them has ever once tread foot upon a more dangerous path, Caleb realizes in the moment. They tromp and point and in general behave the way they’re generally prone, but beside his zeal, Caleb feels a rising trepidation like bile in his throat. 

If he steps a little more gently thereafter, with a little greater reverence, well, he can’t be faulted for caution. 

Power is the lifeblood of the empty annals of these roadways and antechambers, through and through. 

They’re playing with fire of a far more deadly kind. The kind which not a one of them properly understands. If this is what Lucien was promised, Caleb finds he cannot fault the fellow for trying. 

The desire is strong, the temptation great. 

The addiction sings in his veins. 

Power. 

Knowledge. 

Greatness.

All things he was once promised. All things he once strived for. All things he still, in his heart of hearts, knows that he would not deny where they put within his grasp. 

No, Caleb does not fault Lucien even a little bit, for desiring the knowledge that has been promised him. The admittance settles uncomfortably beneath his skin, like a betrayal. Like Molly will see it on him when next they meet and shy away from his proximity in disgust.

The sharp spark of pain in his heart at the thought surprises him, but he sets it aside for later. 

The chamber door of this strange, abandoned mausoleum is open, and the unknown waits on the other side. 

“Can you read it, Caleb?” 

He thinks this is something he could get used to, deciphering magic more ancient than the nine schools at the whim of his friends, delving into the depths of long dead societies, but then the jumble of glyphs become words, concerning words at that and he curtails a little of his excitement.

“Ah, it says, Biological Weapons Research.”

They dick about a bit, testing the spaces around them, careful of the shale that litter the ground and mindful of the terrible sound that the gnomish fellow had heard, but Caleb’s still lost in trying to connect the dots. 

What could be here, if not a threshold crest, that might entice the Tomb Takers? 

A shiver conducts itself electric down his spine. The alien surroundings of his ancestor’s city do little to help him. 

He’s not sure he’s quite ready to know that yet. 

And then, they open the other door, and the most ungodly noise grows in the abyss-like gloom. 

Whatever biological weapons research experiments survived the fall of Aeor, Caleb thinks they’re about to meet one face to face.

The battle is over the mere moments. Scant minutes have passed since the grotesque distortion – to which Caleb can only attribute a semblance of life – discovered them intruding up its territory. Shaken, especially at having been so utterly useless in the face of something so…so… _other_ , he can only sit back and stare at the clay-like corpse of the thing that once was while the others catch their breath.

“-felt fucking useless, man,” Beau is complaining, but he only shakes his head at her.

“I did nothing,” he says, putting voice to the shame. “I did nothing. I could see you though, you got in some good wops.”

(Because if he’s this useless in the face of the things to which Aeor’s brightest minds gave life, then what match will he be for the Minds of Cognouza, those Somnovem that plague their Mollymauk so? )

But something tells him, in lieu of their usual joking and banter, that not a one of them feels anywhere near ready to deal with that terrible and ominous shadow, looming inevitably in the distance. If they feel this small and afraid, how then must Molly feel, burdened with the full force of its focus, desire, gaze. The Nonagon, its chosen vessel. Caleb shudders at the thought. Mollymauk, emptied out to make way for…something else.

Someone else.

The very suggestion abhors him enough that it is not only the stench of the dead thing alone which causes him to gag.

Reluctantly, Caleb stands and strides woodenly to the head of the beast, reaching down and taking its stalk from where it lies limp, deluminated.

_Do this. Do this one thing. Prove to yourself that you have not lost your gumption._

Caleb bends down and takes the severed thing in hand. It’s weighty, the globe at the end actually quite large though it looked less so when still attached in its proper location. Steeling his stomach, Caleb ties the fleshy stalk to the belt at his waist and looks up.

Beside him, Jester squinches her nose. “Caleb, that’s disgusting.”

It is. It is disgusting. He hates it almost as much as she, but he chooses to stomach it anyways. He must. Without words, it is the only reassurance he can give himself that his nerve is not lost, that his will is still unyielding as iron.

That if he ends up standing alone in Mollymauk’s defense, he will not fall without a fight. Not like he’d nearly just done mere moments before.

_Useless._

Eventually, they move on. The path of wreckage is clear enough and they pick apart what little is left of the Assembly Annex’s party, stripping the room and the corpses it contains of its items of note. But it is the slumbering experiments within their glass cases that at turns perturb and enthrall Caleb the most. The Absorber and the Nullifier. Hideous things, malformed, though not so hideous as the baby-creature had been.

Briefly, as they shuffle away in search of an avenue towards the ping Jester is focusing her spell on, he considers how glad he is that they came through first.

That Molly did not have to face what they faced.

That Molly did not have to face what they faced _without them_.

Caleb swallows the thought down. There’s no room for idyll fantasies right now, deep in this cavernous death trap. His head is unsteady at best, his noted focus in shambles. It’s not until Jester pushes him the rod to identify that he finds a semblance of peace in the current situation. Caduceus watches over his shoulder at the sleeping abominations of man, ears twitching ever so slightly with the faintest of sounds, while the others investigate the floor grate with their usual mayhem.

All Caleb’s thought channels into the movements of his hands, circling around and around the rod, fingers drifting in dexterous shapes as he sets about identifying the item. Here, in this practiced routine, nothing can reach him.

Not fear, not pain, not pleasure. Not worry, not anger.

Not Anything.

Not Mollymauk.

From his peripheral, something moves and Caleb practically jumps, but Caduceus is calm and Caduceus – so it sometimes seems, at least – sees all and knows all. In that, Caleb trusts implicitly.

What he’s had vacillating trust in is his own mind. He blocks the imagined red glow from his mind, batters away Jester’s whispered shout and _focuses_.

Finally, the spell complete, he finds himself almost unwilling to let the rod go.

Fear.

Through the years, it’s been a powerful tool, both as wielded by himself against others as well as wielded by others against himself. Powerful, yes, but traitorous. Too much, he full well knows, can just as easily turn to hate; like the blackened charr of an old skillet, Caleb’s hatred for Ikithon cannot be scraped away, no matter how polished clean the outside of him might be, he knows what lies inside.

“Time to go,” Caduceus says, breaking through his thoughts. One of the _things_ behind them is moving and Caleb wastes no time in moving forward.

One by one, they descend. At the end of the rope, Caleb fiddles with the cocoon in his pocket and casts the spell again, ignoring the fact that the last time he do so, he’d spent a hour simply staring at the intricacies of Mollymauk’s tattoos recreated on the canvas of his own stolen limbs.

Now, he is an owl, large and powerful and free.

His wings flap and everything else grows faint in his mind’s eye, especially as Yasha drops on top of him like the world’s least aerodynamic diver. Still, when soaring, he finds the freedom that he never can in life.

Absently, he wonders, with what brainpower is available to him, what Mollymauk might enjoy being. A bird to match his name? Could they fly together, one day?

The insistent pressing of these happy thoughts distracts him as he flies them both down to the arboretum floor. And only when he returns to himself, does Caleb’s stomach drop out from him again.

The space in which they stand is _wrong_. There’s no other way to put it.

It’s dark. Pitch black, save for the sporadic lightshow of the celebone Beau carries, but still, he can see them. Ghostly among the darkness, the trees emerge at odd angles, twisted and bent and… _wrong_. His vocabulary – in any language – fails him. They’re patterned, he notices, laid out purposefully, patterned where they’ve been planted, but from root, it is apparent that something went wrong, though no impediments give reason to their gnarled and misshapen trunks of pale, chalky white.

A dead forest in the heart of a dead city in the middle of a dead and barren landscape.

Fitting, though no less eerie for it.

Caleb shivers.

What hours ago seemed a most thrilling venture, so thrilling that he’d even contemplated being happy in such an endeavour for the rest of his life, is growing only more and more unnerving as the hours press on.

But there is still a threshold crest to be found, and a terrible evil to prevent.

They move into the darkness along a path which only Jester knows. Caduceus lags behind, wary, uncomfortable with the familiarity he’d voice only moments before to that of his own home. It’s funny, Caleb thinks, how oddly connected Caduceus has ended up being to Mollymauk. Funny that they had never rightly met, and yet both with their intertwined threads, been drawn to the Nein.

Another tally on the ledger of fate.

Perhaps she is winning after all.

But Caleb doesn’t want to look too hard. The deeper he peers, the less satisfied he is with what he sees. It’s too much and not enough all at once. Dangerous and compelling and frustrating. Before long, they breach the edge of the arboretum and find a sister chamber to the one at A5.

Once more Caleb shivers, but this time, it’s not for the unnatural cast to their surroundings, but to the uncanny feeling that eyes are upon him, and won’t let go. He misses whatever conversation Caduceus and Jester have with the trees. He misses even when Beau holds Yasha back for a private conversation. Other things are more important now.

Like the rabbit he knows he is, no matter how many times he plays the apex predator, it’s always just that: _playing,_ he stops dead in his tracks, alone in the hall. The echoing of other voices grows faint, muffled.

Even as a small child, having woken from a nightmare, he’d pull the covers up over his head, as though they were the only armor he needed to batten back the monsters he imagined were set to prey upon him in the dark. That if he were still and made no move, they might not see him, that their eyes would gloss over him. (In the here and now, he imagines those eyes glowing and red and _intent_ with something akin to hunger.)

And then the others start talking and walking and moving past him and he’s shaken from the feeling. Whatever it was is gone, and he daren’t bother them with his scattered musings.

A single dispel later and the chamber is open to them, the glowing blue of the threshold crest illuminating the room in its soft ephemeral light. 

Caleb takes a deep breath.

It’s for the world, his mind tells his heart.

 _It’s for Mollymauk_ , his heart retorts.

The mind doesn’t fight back.

In the middle of the battle, he nearly loses it. 

Fjord, run through with the lance arm of the automaton, is growing pallid as Yasha, high above, angrily swats at their prize. His spectral cat’s paw is all that stands between life and death, because success and failure, and his desire to scavenge the construct for valuable parts is not lessened in the slightest, but still, he almost loses it. 

The glowing red eye that serves the automaton’s functions draws him in like tunnel vision, a pulsingly florid light, hard and cold for its colour, riveting on its rivals one at a time. Never does it fix upon him, and yet, he feels stuck in place, the recognition of that same feeling from but minutes before. It fades, fast enough luckily, and he sends the cat’s paw to pull Fjord from the lance. Ignoring the pained yelps, he lets his friend go, sending the paw back to the ceiling to help Yasha in her tugging and returning to his single minded focus. 

And even when it’s over, when the automaton lies sparking, its eye no longer an angry light, and the threshold crest is at hand, Caleb doesn’t mention his lasps. Instead, he pockets the part, and they make their way through the antechambers, sating their curiosity, before planning their escape. 

In a daze, one by one, he flies them to the ventilation shaft, circumventing the ghostly trees, which he imagines would bother him more if he wasn’t already so unsettled by something for which he hasn’t a name, even a description to provide to satiate his academic mind. It’s untenable to remain so distracted when so much of their safety relies on his focus. And yet, and yet…

Jester, now in the ventilation shaft with him, looks down at the forest, her hand held out in anticipation of somatic casting, when she looks back at him, and then up into the shadowed darkness of the tunnel, where Caduceus waits somewhere beyond. When the fire catches hold, for the first time, something other than his discomfiture waylays Caleb, and he can do nothing else but stare endlessly into the flickering flame before it is engulfed in the stinging shadow of smoke and Jester is prodding him back up the shaft and out into the laboratory again. 

They fly back through the ruins, mindless in their haste to be away from A5, away from the inhuman shrieking of dead trees, away from the twitching of abominations in enormous jars, away from the inevitable encroachment of the Tomb Takers. In this last thought, at least, Caleb is torn. Now that they have the Threshold Crest, they have _reason_ to reconvene with the Tomb Takers, and reconvening with the Tomb Takers means reconvening with _Molly_ , even if only he and Caduceus know the truth. There’s nothing he can do to refute them. It’s true enough that Molly will have to act upset, and that the other Tomb Takers _will_ be upset, and it would put Molly in danger to do anything but act according to the status quo. 

The status quo which they have effectively flipped on its head. 

One quick mishap with Ivar later, Dagen is leading them through the bitter cold elements once more, in vain hope that they can secret themselves to safety in more ways than one. 

Through the whole trip, the snow glowing white in the pitch black, Caleb sees only the unnatural red haze, no matter how he tries to block it out. It’s putting up the dome that finally eases him. Ten minutes of pure focus, the arcane words, the circling and twining hand movements, each intricate beyond belief and require such perfect focus that his mind hasn’t the chance to wander. Grateful in more ways than one for its sheltering presence, Caleb relaxes back on the ground, shaking in the sudden warmth. Gingerly he touches his eartips - frozen cold - and his nose - the same, and begins to rub his hands together as the rest file into the space, crowding cozily together. There’s just enough pity in him to give Frumpkin over to Ivar for a bit before wresting the cat back and settling himself down to a well deserved sleep before the watch he’s elected to take. 

It is to the memory of earnest ruby eyes that he finds his slumber. 

There is no fire in the dream, ironically enough, especially considering the terrible shrieks of the cursed and malefic subterranean forest. Molly isn’t there either, though for some reason Caleb feels like he should be. 

In this dream, there’s just the field and the beans and his father, kneeling in the dirt. Caleb stalks up behind him, his shadow circumscribing his father’s presence on the earth. 

“Hallo, Papa. Wie geht’s?” 

“Na gut, Junge.” 

Caleb cocks his head. His father’s voice is raspier than normal. 

“Alles gut bei dir? Alles gut mit die Ernte?” he prompts, looking about at the bean crop. “Sie sieht sehr gesund aus. Darf ich bitte ein essen?” Even the thought of the way a fresh bite of bean would crunch and squeak between his teeth made Caleb’s mouth water. The soft little hairs, the dirt clinging to them, the residual dew all in one amalgam of piquancy, the which distilled down that late summer of childhood into a single sense memory, impressed like stone reliefs on his mind. “Bitte, Vati?” 

“Ja, Junge, du Engel. Heir,” and his father turns where he kneels, like a sandstone statue, joints dusty and crumbling as he lifts an ashen hand up towards Caleb. 

Stomach roiling, Caleb blanches.

The bean withers and dies as it falls through the disintegrating hand. It is not his father. There is nothing of the creature before him that exudes life. There is nothing there, no eyes in sockets, no blood to pulse behind cheeks, no sweat glistening upon a ruddy brow. 

As Caleb watches on, stunned in his abject horror, the facsimile of like petrified wood - calcite and carbon and shimmering quartz - that thing which holds his father’s form collapses into ash at his feet. 

“Vati?” he asks, voice shaking with confusion, but the field only crumbles around him and his stomach, which still protests the image of his father, that grotesque and illusory form, lurches with sudden hunger. Around him, the crop withers just as had the single bean, until nothing is left but the white cloak he could never convince himself was snow. 

A dark speck arises in the foreground. It’s pulsing, growing with some antithesis of life, when, abruptly, there are hands on his shoulders and he shudders awake in the crowd of the dome, Fjord’s yellow eyes an entirely different glow in the darkness. 

“Your watch. Dome’s covered. You’ll have to peek out if you want to see.” 

Caleb only nods. It’s a miracle he feels no need to retch, only empty. Empty like the bushels of his parents farm. Empty like his childhood home. 

Empty like his head with lies and obedience. 

Just empty. 

He almost misses it when Jester rests her head against Fjord’s shoulder and they begin to whisper confidentially to one another, with an intimacy Caleb recognizes all too well. Funny. It hurts less than he thought it would. 

Dispelling the dream from his mind to think on it later, he whisks Frumpkin up and out of the dome for a look. 

Beyond, the storm swirls, not menacingly, but powerfully all the same. Nature, he tries to remind himself, is stronger than almost anything. Magic included. Nature reclaims all. It is now that he takes his joy in the consistency of Caduceus’ presence. Their friend is a physical reminder of his father’s adage. It makes him feel small in the world just thinking about how easily nature had subsumed the ruins of Aeor, no matter how high and mighty that city’s greatness had once been. 

All things are brought low eventually, especially those things made by man. 

But ever had Caleb wanted to be powerful in the face of nature. Ever had he wanted to conquer it. The desire has not left him, not even now. Diminished, perhaps, but no less present. Halas and the Somnovem and the Nonagon all. Perhaps he is not so far removed from what Lucien once was. That thought above all unsettles him and a fear spikes more piercing than the phantom hunger of the dream in his gut. 

_Molly cannot be allowed know,_ he thinks, feeling absurdly giddy with fear. Like those magic butterflies have somehow stuffed themselves down his gullet and are tearing him apart from the inside, the thought bites into him. Molly cannot _ever_ know. 

There’s very little Molly hates, save Lucien. And to feel the rare strength of that animosity turned upon him, Caleb finds, seems somehow worse than the impending doom heralded in his dreams. The admission of his similarity to that hated identity tantamount to having raised the glaive against Molly himself, in Lorenzo’s place. 

Molly cannot ever, _ever_ know. 

Caleb will die before he allows this newest and most terrible of truths to ever pass beyond the echochamber of his mind. 

_It should have been you_ , he thinks to himself, and not for the first time, though never in so many words, never so forthright. _It should have been you on the Glory Run Road, Caleb Widogast. Bren. Bleeding out and dying._

_It should have been you._

All the rest of his watch, until he gently shakes Caduceus from slumber, he repeats the mantra in his mind, a self-flagellation worse than any physical harm he could ever seek to inflict. His sleep though, - luckily, as he feels more exhausted than even when they had pushed deep into the night on past occasions - goes undisturbed by further dreams, but soft conversation does begin to worm its way into the haze of his slumber-addled brain.

Caduceus’ voice, conversing with…someone…draws Caleb from the depths of sleep. Blinking open one eye, much like his cat, Caleb sees their friend crouching within the dome.

“-got a problem.”

He doesn’t have to say what that problem is for Caleb to know instantly; Caduceus looks at him quite directly.

It’s Mollymauk – or well, _Lucien_ – and they haven’t slept long enough to regain their full strength. Without any further clarification, Caduceus stands back up, his head poking out of the dome, and continues to converse with their recondite friend as though he knows no better, one way or another. And really, Caleb supposes, considering Caduceus’ insistence on never lying again after last night’s disastrous first attempt, it’s not untrue.

Caduceus knows nothing of the real Molly. Only the caricature of the villain he’d begun his life by dying as.

Shuttering his eyes again, Caleb half listens to what bit of their conversation he can pick up, which is to say, not terribly much. But what he does here is…uncharacteristically blasé. But then, Caduceus is hardly worth the performance, and something tells Caleb that the Tomb Takers won’t be offput by it at all.

He _almost_ sounds like Molly. (Molly had worried as much, not quite said it, but Caleb had caught it all the same, the nervousness that came with the insinuation. That there were similarities enough between the two personalities.) Especially when he complains about their having made him chase them all night long. Though his impatience would normally be odd, Caleb can hear the waver, the scraped thin consistency of his raw nerves that comes from constantly pretending.

If Caleb had been doing the same for the past few months, he would not have much patience left either. They’re close – _so infinitely close –_ and yet so far away from the goal.

As the rest begin to converse over the best course of action, regarding their sleep _and_ the threshold crest, Caleb ignores them. It’s the one blessing of his knowledge, that he doesn’t have to worry about a double cross or a backstab, at least not from _Lucien_. But it is rather unkind, he supposes, to keep Molly waiting on him. Molly who doesn’t know that Caduceus is in on the secret. Molly whose insistent statements are getting just the wrong side of what could be construed as ‘testy’, were it not for his better knowledge to recognize anxious tenseness.

Molly’s waiting for him – and how he became Molly’s one, single pillar of solidarity, he’ll never understand – and the rest are acting much the way they always do: planting their faces forth in deflective bullshit so that they don’t have to face the music.

But Caleb stays there anyways, even as the others begin to converse with Molly.

Caleb’s ears prickle a bit; Beau – who had still not really spoken to him since their ill-fated conversation – is starting to banter, her most prickly tendencies ripe to go when woken so early in the morning and by someone wearing the face of a beloved friend no less.

Laying there, trying to rest (a futility), Caleb begins to wonder just how long it will take her to recognize how familiar their conversation is. The broad strokes, not the details. Molly complains, Beau says something antagonizing, Molly retorts sarcastically, Beau sasses back, Molly insults Beau, Beau insults back.

It would almost be terrifying if Caleb didn’t know any better.

And then, the snow falls in on them with a snap of Molly’s fingers. Caleb’s too busy wondering how Molly learned _that_ trick to be bothered about the chilly slush that’s growing along his neck where the snow sits within his hood.

“Well, Lucien, in my memory, or at least where I come from, invitations are suggested. You can take them or you can leave them, so while we did not cover the path that you laid out for us…” Beau gestures around them. “Seems like it’s a free tundra, right?”

Caleb shakes himself off, hair whipping out from its loose gathering.

There stands Mollymauk, framed by the dawn, yellow and peach hues pleasantly complementing his more subdued palate. Beau is still talking, but Caleb isn’t listening. He’s too busy watching Molly. Molly, who looks just about at the end of his rope. And suddenly, Caleb’s brought back, harshly, to reality. The banter is all well and good, but Molly’s stretched thinner than ever. And Beau is unrelenting.

A vein pulses on Molly’s forehead.

Caleb knows that any who see – Beau, that means, Beau – will instantly misinterpret it. Which, he tries to rationalize, is a good thing. It _has_ to be this way.

Even Molly could see the logic in it, no matter how little he liked to admit it.

But Molly’s strained patience is at an end, and so too, is any feint of friendliness to their banter. It’s down to the business of playing the role and playing it well enough that Cree’s brow doesn’t furrow. Still, Caleb says nothing.

He wouldn’t know where to begin without somehow ruining it all. Making the Nein suspect. It’s harder than he thought, especially after their last discussion, and they can’t afford to be at odds with one another with the rest of the Tomb Takers able to watch and dissect their interactions so readily. So he lets them do their work, and Molly puts on his best performance. Vague on the details, vaguely threatening, vaguely Molly.

Vaguely Lucien.

Caleb shivers.

 _No time to think like that_ , he admonishes himself while Veth, Yasha, and Fjord take over the negotiations.

And then, Caleb sees it. Blearily, he blinks, disbelief overcoming reason. It lasted only a fraction of a second, and he almost wouldn’t be able to tell, save that he remembers Molly so perfectly that the slightest difference of his physical self sets off alarm bells.

The eye on Molly’s neck has _shifted._

It’s looking right at him.

Caduceus shifts, uncomfortably, and Caleb glances away, notices the insistence of his gaze. So he’d seen it too.

But Caleb doesn’t know what to make of it. What it means, if anything.

Molly’s been running around for a long time, and it’s hardly the first _new_ think about him that’s unsettling. His power has grown. And his power _is_ Lucien’s power. Seeping through. Part of him wants to ask, later, when he’s managed to get Molly to himself in the tower – for he’s sure that they will.

Part of him dreads the idea.

He’s not sure if Molly can handle it.

And yet, all this time, Molly has persevered without them. It would be uncharitable to underestimate the strength of his friend’s resolve. There’s hardly one braver among them, to be forced – alone no less – to face head on the unwanted terror of his treacherous past. So far, they’ve all done it together.

Only Molly has faced this battle alone.

Only Molly has survived in the face of such isolation, survived despite himself. And chosen, _chosen_ , the more difficult path. Because he knows that it is right.

For a moment, Caleb blinks in awe.

Molly is the strongest person he knows.

And in that moment, Caleb vows to make sure that Molly knows it, too.

“Well, boys and girls,” Molly says to the Tomb Takers, though he doesn’t look away from Fjord (or from Caleb, as the case may be). “It has been a bit lonely traveling out here alone. Are we against having a few more companions?"

"Not particularly.” The goliath. Zoran, Caleb thinks. “Wouldn't be too bad to have some more knuckleheads to toss some laughs with, eh?"

The halfling and the human – or is she an elf? They’re close to the Tomb Takers now, and Caleb thinks her features are a little more delicate than the usual human – give their assent readily. Finally, only Cree remains. She stands behind Mollymauk, stoic as ever. And no matter the others’ gifts, Caleb cannot shake the feeling that she’s the most dangerous to Mollymauk.

"Whatever the Nonagon says, goes.”

Another question that goes unanswered – does the title transcend the personality? 

Something innate informs Caleb that they’re likely to find out, whether they want to, or not. 


	3. 3 | Thaw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to meridas for the beta. You're a godsend. 
> 
> Also...wow...How about that 122. I have so many thoughts about how to adapt it.

3 | Thaw

The longer he spends in Eiselcross, the more alien Molly feels in his own skin. It’s not the clothes, or the jewelry, or even his hair. It’s not even the Tomb Takers. 

It’s just him. 

At first, it’s not terribly noticeable. The Nein follow, albeit separately, at at least half a day’s distance, and he spends most of the day thinking about how he wants to simply turn around and walk until there’s no more snow anywhere to be seen, and whoever wants to follow him, can. 

But he doesn’t. The something in him continues to draw him magnetically further into the wintry depths of the north. Step for step, he drives himself forward through the snow with endless endurance until the sun settles in the west, the golden yolk to cap the snowy expanse. That night, as he lays on his pack, restless, he finds that he can’t bring himself to close his eyes. Sleep doesn’t come to him, not easily. And then, in subsequent nights, fades entirely. 

In sleep’s place, waking dreams plague him endlessly. 

From the memory of that deep chamber within the ruins, rises the voice, just like before, whispering its multifaceted intent in multi-tonal strands, woven like threads into one tapestry of sound and impression. Molly shivers, but only through forcing himself to do so. It’s cold and the voices make him uneasy. A shiver should be the appropriate response, but he doesn’t feel it there, beneath his skin, traipsing like a fiend down his spine. It’s not there, that most natural, physical reaction. Just like exhaustion, the ability seems to have fled him at some point. 

They’re nearing the next excavation site. They must be. 

Even if the subtle whispers of voices like too much gossamer fogging his brain weren’t there to tell him, he thinks he would know anyways. He can feel it, writhing with impatience and excitement under the red imprints of eyes all across his skin, their gazes fanning everywhere at once, rolling and shifting. When he whimpers a bit, it’s not quite forced. Not yet. 

More desperately than ever, he wishes for Caleb’s solid grip on his hand, the steel in his blue eyes, unwavering and steady. 

But even that, Molly knows, would not banish the thing living in the back of his mind. 

Whatever it is, he woke it up, and now, it’s more determined than ever not to go back to sleep. 

In the dusky purple - so dark it’s almost black, but not quite - sky, the winking stars begin to roil and shift, to bend and refract until the sky is no longer Eiselcross, and the ground is ephemeral and he is in two places at once. There, where he was before, and … elsewhere. Elsewhere where he’s visited before, in dreams, where red eyes watch him unendingly. But this time, the fear is distant. Muted. Like the comfortable sensation of sinking deep, deep below waves.

He is Elsewhere, where the voices grow stronger in their whispering and the shadows loom large despite the absence of light, and the span of existence around him is an ever altering swirl of winking gold and silver veins upon an endless sea of inky blues and subtle greens. And the Shadow, of course. 

The Shadow and the Voices and he feels small  _ so small _ , so  _ impossibly small _ and yet, inside, he’s full to bursting with a sensation he cannot name. Under his ribs, pounding at his skull, they bicker and swarm, the voice that is one and many, that is harmonious and discordant, the cacophony of thought and industry and intent that syphons from the shadow and into his head, the inky tendril a growing link that dissipates in the endlessness. 

_ Free us,  _ they demand, incessant. But the instructions which follow are many and varied and inconsistent and countermanding, and far beyond Molly’s limited comprehension. His eyelids flutter with the strain, but do not close, colour and vibration and something that’s not quite light pirouette around him, their whorls rapidly straightening out into thin metallic lines pressing past him. Or is he the one moving, propelled forward by an intangible force at unrepentantly extreme speeds? Yet no wind buffets past him; not a single strand of his hair drifts from where it hangs. Is it ageless, the span of time he spends in this state? Or is it instantaneous?

His absent contemplation is ripped away when suddenly, the gossamer trails thin down into a tunnel of streaks consolidating the farthest point of his distant vision. Space elongates, stretching widening and then, like stretched rubber cracking back, where the shadow had been but the hazy black spec in his subconscious understanding it is quite suddenly looming before him, colossal, monstrous, writhing and shifting and  _ living _ , obscuring all else with its aphotic mass, which stretches to the extreme reaches of his vision. Like oil, it ripples without colour. It ripples, but only because he  _ knows _ that it does. Not because he  _ sees  _ it. 

At once, he feels every eye slide and shift until they all stare as one with him at their Master. 

_ Cognouza.  _

_ Somnovem. _

The words come back to him, like they’d never left. Impressions fill his head through the tendril that connects him, the pages of that so coveted book flickering through the jagged shards of his fractured memory. 

When the dream fades away -  _ can you dream when you cannot sleep? _ he wonders to himself - the sunlight is just dressing the snow in soft yellows and pinks and he stands, unaching, without stiffness and looks down at the group assembled around the fire. Cree in her furs, curled up catlike, Otis’ form twitchy even in their sleep. Zoran, snoring. Tyffial still as a stone statue. A rash of disgust rips through him at the sight. He’s restless. There’s a building energy in his legs, in his hands. His tail whips about unrestrained; if it is frostbitten, he doesn't think he could feel it. Isn’t sure he quite cares. 

Something is different beneath his skin. Something invasive. Something alien. Before, in the first dream, he’d cried out for help and no one heard him. This time, even after it is over, no help comes because he doesn’t cry out. 

Fear. Just another thing to add to the list of stolen sensations. He’s not sure if he should miss it. Something rational says he should, but he puts it aside. Fear is an ugly emotion and he’ll not be sorry if he never feels it again. 

In its place, a new transience fills Mollymauk like too much liquid overpouring a cup; reflexively, he squeezes his hands tightly into fists. They’re wasting time. 

Abruptly, the moment the thought is formed, each and every member of the Tomb Takers is awake, sitting up, staring at him, their eyes a soft, glowing vermillion. 

Like an image refracted in crystal, he sees them. He sees them, seeing one another, seeing him, seeing them. 

Endless. 

Infinite reflections of the same image, the same omniscient perspective. 

Mollymauk sees  _ all _ . 

“Get up. It’s time to go,” they announce with him in chorus. And once they’re doing what he wants, his control over them fades. This time, his shiver is involuntary, and the gorge rises at the back of his throat.. Maybe the City hasn’t stolen everything from him  _ just  _ yet. 

But the yearning to move forward doesn’t lessen. 

It’s the Nein, he thinks to himself, that he wants to see. The faster they get to the next site, the faster he can be with them again and then all of this - whatever it is - can fade like a passing nightmare. 

(Except that it won’t. He knows it won’t. Hope is all he has left.)

When they arrive at the site, deep into the evening, the evidence is clear. 

The Nein have been and gone. 

Molly’s fists clench again and the strike back out under the silent falling snow, into the storm. Before too long, the way is lost and she pauses, turning to him. 

“Nonagon, I will scry.” Her earnestness is almost sickening. But before he can bitingly give her permission, she continues. “See through me, and we will all know the way.” 

The temptation is strong. She must think that he’s remembering things (No. It isn’t true. He’s  _ not _ remembering. He  _ can’t _ remember what he’s never known. But it’s a lie, and vile, insidious lie and his sight is omniscient now - there’s no hiding the truth, not even from himself), because she takes his hand in hers. “Earlier, you have not done that since  _ before _ . Lucien…” 

With every iota of his being, he keeps himself from flinging her hand away from his own. The temptation she offers is strong. If he could only  _ see _ them. Just for a moment...he could reaffirm his center, could steady himself from where he stands on the precipice. Just for a  _ moment _ . 

“Yes.” It’s a simple, curt response, but simple and curt is better than anything that might come out overeager or desperate, and while he’s not sure if that’s something he’s capable of anymore, he’s loath to lose his edge now. And his false front is the only edge he has left. 

It’s simple, falling back into it. As easy as thinking it, it’s real. The crystalline omniscience takes over his vision once again as Cree casts her scrying spell and they push forward together, all of them as one, through her vision of the snowy landscape, several hours distant, to a mountainside dome, covered over in snow, where, cozy inside, they all see Jester sleeping. 

Without hesitation, he pulls away. They know the trek now, and he’s itching to be there before dawn. 

The sooner, the better. 

He wanted them out of the dome – he’d snapped, to hurry them, nothing less – and the dome fell in completely. Just one more piece of unwanted mystery to add to the rest. But what’s done is done, and he tries not to dwell on it until he has to. Dwelling never did him any good anyways.

The Nein are just as insufferable as he remembers. Last time, they’d been cautious. Overly cautious. Now, they’re outright belligerent, save for Caleb, who says nothing. Not one single thing.

Beauregard is the worst, because of course she is, and he wants to give her some manner of hint – anything really – but he can’t and he knows it. The balance is too fragile, too tenuous to be tested so soon, when so much could go desperately wrong.

_ You still want out, _ he reminds himself.  _ Don’t lose yourself, Mollymauk. Don’t you dare _ .

It’s buoying, rallying, to be there with them, even for the difficulty of keeping up the façade. They’re ornery, and tired, and he can’t afford to keeping playing with them any longer. His patience –  _ months _ of patience – has run out and he wants nothing more than for it to all be done and over with. But now, Lucien’s nightmare creature has its hooks in him and it’s never going to let him go. Not unless they can end this.

Not that he’s got the faintest clue how that’s going to happen.

So it’s risky, but he doesn’t want to let them sleep.

The stall and lag and titter, but he pushes them just as he’d pushed Lucien’s crew. It’s Caduceus who throws him, more than any of them. Caleb won’t meet his eyes, but Caduceus can’t stop watching him, so it seems. Thought it was but scant days before – nearing on a week – that he’d seen them all last, spoke with them, it’s feels neigh on an age. In that time, had Caduceus guessed? Had Caleb used the permission Molly had given him to confess the truth to their new cleric friend?

Or is he simply so wary that he’s attuned himself to Molly’s every move?

The eye on his neck slides – he can feel it – in response to his attentive thoughts, and he can see – yes,  _ see _ , and he’s  _ this close _ to hyperventilating or ceasing to breathe at all – Caduceus, even though he’s currently locked in negotiations with Fjord and Beau and…Yasha. Caduceus whose eyes widen, just a hairsbreadth enough to be noticeable. Caduceus who, regardless of what he knows and doesn’t know, has  _ seen _ enough himself.

But Molly is entirely too tired of playing around.

So he doesn’t let them sleep, placating Jester, who puts on a  _ hell _ of a show at being utterly and completely exhausted. Probably because she is, at least in part. Caduceus argues for ‘a minute’ more and when he can’t bear it any longer, he stalks away, agreeing to ‘a minute’, whatever that might be.

_ Lucien wouldn’t have let them sleep _ , he rationalizes.  _ Because Lucien is a dick. And I have to…to… _ he still can’t even stand to think the phrase, which in itself is a great comfort. Maybe he’s not so far gone after all. Maybe there is hope for him, yet.

The whispers start soon after that. He can tell, because Caduceus walks up and set about making a little spot in the snow for tea, heating snow into water in the kettle he settles over a giant amethyst crystal he removes from his knotted, knobby staff. The tea he accepts, if only because he  _ knows _ the Nein, knows that right now they’re planning and plotting and that there’s only so much Caleb can do without giving the trick away.

So he drinks his tea, appeasing Caduceus, but eats nothing offered and then, when there is nothing left at the bottom but dregs, he hands the cup back to its owner and stands again. There can be no putting it off any longer.

“Right! Right as rain, right? Shall we be on the road?”

“I guess so!” comes Veth’s high pitched rasp.

“Don’t mean to be rushing you, but um, we’re going out on a limb here, trusting that we can travel together for a bit and I would be remiss if I didn’t notice that disadvantage that you all happen to be at. Consider this just safety for us, as you are  _ quite accomplished _ individuals to have made your way through two Aeorian ruins.” He lifts a hand affectedly to his heart. “I would not want to find ourselves on the opposite end of a seemingly unhappy and tense group of heroes and adventurers.”

He pauses, waiting, and it’s Caduceus who takes up the thread.

Caduceus, who throws him off kilter. Mollymauk bristles.

“I appreciate, uh, truth before politeness.”

If ever loaded words were spoken, these are it. Molly doesn’t know if its meant to be a hint or a threat and he glances again, surreptitiously, to Caleb, but gets nothing by way of indication. He cannot linger, and the eyes don’t seem to want to move to watch him – how Molly made it happen in the first place, he’s still uncertain.

So, he raises his hands, and widens his eyes, all mock innocence. “Just being upfront.”

“Sure,” Veth reassures, though he can hear the insincerity.

“No funny business. If we wanted you dead right now, we would have already done so.”

“That’s true.” It’s Caduceus again. His tea things are all already cleared away and there’s a hard edge to his voice, a stern glint in his eye. “Little strange even. But true.”

Molly tries his best not to tense up at the insinuation. If he knows, then he’s doing a poor job of hiding it.

It’s Fjord who asks for specifics at that, at least, Molly can give them. He’d spoken confidentially with Cree in the past week, knows that their trajectory is for the lava river, knows how it works, where to head, though he –  _ he, Molly _ – has never been there and cannot recall. To that end, Cree seems less bothered than ever. Whatever the dreams and visions, the onset of terrible new power, it’s all been enough to slake her concern for his ‘patchy memories’. If she was ever in doubt of his status as the Nonagon, Molly doesn’t think she is now. No, only he is worrying over Caduceus Clay giving away the lynch pin of the plan. Only he and Caleb know to look for it. That is, if its even really there.

For a scant moment, Molly wishes they didn’t have to trek all day. He wants the tower, wants to corner Caleb, to demand answers that he knows he’s not going to get for far, far too long, wants the luxury of comfort, of an embrace he now knows will not be denied him, not after last time. Wants to feel that unsuspecting strength holding him steady, secure.

He’s just finished explaining when he noticed the leaden weight of Beauregard’s stare resting on him, like she’s trying to pick him apart, trying to discern exactly what is going on in his mind.

With his last ounce of hope, he begs the stars, the sun, the moons that she doesn’t see the truth.  _ Just a little longer _ , he pleads, silently.  _ Let me protect you. Let me protect us all. _

(But how can he do that when he cannot even protect himself?)

And then, Veth asks who will lead. He is meant to, of course, and he’s rather proud that he doesn’t bat an eye at the requirement, especially considering that he hasn’t the slightest idea what direction he’s facing right at that moment.

“Well,” he starts. “We know where we’re going. Been there before. So we can take the lead.”

And that, thank the gods, is that. Clapping his hands, he plasters a smirk on his face that he doesn’t feel. “Day’s young. Lots of walking, maybe some talking.”

They set off. It’s surprisingly easy to ignore the ensuing careful conversation between the two groups. Of course, this isn’t the first time the groups have spoken a little more casually, though, he thinks, he’d been unconscious for the majority of any of it, and certainly not with this lightness between them. The Tomb Takers don’t question him, don’t question his choices, and so they easily allow themselves the room to converse.

That doesn’t mean a single person on either side isn’t weighing and measuring the others with equal ferocity, but Molly wants none of it. The river of lava is too far off, even a day’s journey is too long for his liking, desperate as he is to catch a true moment alone with his one and only confidant.

Caleb, not Yasha, fills that space now. How strange, he thinks to himself as he walks out ahead, Cree having subtly encouraged him in the right direction. How strange that of all the things he’d never _ , ever _ imagined, it is the closeness he now shares with Caleb, even if born out of desperation and necessity. Ultimately, he knows that Caleb might not see it the same way, but he’d comforted Molly without complaint. Touched him, held him.

Selfishly, he prays to the Moonweaver, to whomever is listening, that Caleb means it. That he’s not just being indulgent in Molly’s hour of need.

His heart can only take so much, and he’s survived a lot, but he’s not sure he’d survive that. It’s all that remains to tether Molly to his true self, the memory of that earnest promise, Caleb’s hand on his own, to help.

Once or twice he glances behind, mostly to check that he’s on the right path, with an eye twitch or a head nudge from Cree, and he notices that the two groups have split apart like oil and water; unsurprising, and a fierce flash of protectiveness surges through him. How could he be so thoughtless? He should send them away, far, far away where they’ll be safe.

Where Lucien’s machinations, where the nightmare in the Astral Sea, where  _ Molly _ himself cannot hurt them.

Let him carry the burden alone. He’d been their saviour once, he could be their saviour again. And it had been worth it. Would always be worth it to have seen to Beauregard’s wellbeing over his own, that they had then been able to save the rest. A worthy sacrifice, since they’d succeeded. There are so many questions he has, so many things he’d like to ask about how everything shook out the way it did after. How they came to end up here.

But it’s not that important. He could have asked Caleb last time, but he hadn’t. The only thing that matters is the future.

Even if it’s not one he’s looking forward to running towards.

Around midday Cree gives him a bit of a look. They’ve been pushing on fairly rapidly, but he’d been slowing up a bit for them. Apparently not unnoticeably so. With as much nonchalance as he can manage, Molly digs through his pack for something to eat and then speeds up his pace. They’re strong and not so very far behind. They’ll manage. If there is one thing he still knows is certain of the Nein, it’s that they will never give up one they’ve attached themselves to something. A drive unparalleled and mostly born out of simple spite and antagonistic tendencies.

Two very powerful annoyances. In some ways it’s a miracle they’re not dead yet. Maybe they’re only alive out of spite, too.

Molly knows he is.

Eventually, when he looks over his shoulder, he sees that Veth has caught up a bit with them and is speaking with Otis in hushed tones. He’s returning the conversation rather genially – probably commiserating about being halflings or being weird and sneaking. No one else makes a move to close the gap, however, and eventually the conversation between the two ceases, Veth holding back and Otis speeding up, her shifty eyes catching his and narrowing. The expression is a curious one, but Molly sees it for what it is.

A signal.

_ I’m watching them _ .

Discreetly, Molly nods back.

They walk on, the light lowering though not quite receding, when he notices of his own volition that they’re nearing their destination.

"We're not far,” he calls back to them as jovially as he can manage. “Hope you've got your comforts about you." 

“Come-comforts?” Veth stammers back at him and he smiles, wryly.

"Ah, up over that hill."

The lava river unfurls before them like the trailing of Orna’s vibrant orange dancer’s ribbon in the middle of a pallid backdrop. Some part of him thinks he should be in awe of the sight, but he’s not. Swallowing hard, Molly stows the realization away for another time and takes it in a moment longer before setting to work looking for the best place to set up camp.

Unlike himself, the Nein congregate at the top of the crest, looking down in mesmerized fascination and Molly can’t help but turn back, but listen, but feel left out.

“-that same feeling when you're in a high tower or something and you have that  _ urge _ ,” Caleb says. And in that instance, Molly forgets.

He forgets everything.

Turns.

Takes one step forward.

“Careful.” They jump, surprised – even Caleb – their attention falling to him. With a little relish, he points at Beau. “Your sour friend might just push you in for a laugh.” Every ounce of his self-control goes into restraining a smile from his expression, into the piercing quality he knows he’s capable of attaining with a single stare.

The evidence of his success lies in Beau twitching lip and furrowed brow.

Aiming for careless, he laughs after the moment is prolonged and then leaves them, a hitch in his chest, to go and carve out a space for his camp.

He feels all their eyes on him as he goes, though none and more heavily weighted, he imagines, than Caleb’s.

Whatever conversation they make after that is beyond his hearing and he busies himself with playing it cool for the Tomb Takers and suspiciously eyeing the Nein to keep up the show. Zoran and Tyffial are joking about something, but he’s too deep in thought to take any real notice of it, laughing when they laugh and stopping when they stop. At one point, Cree passes him, just nudging against him and gives him that kind, worried look he’s always so despised.

It means that Lucien is loved, and for that, Molly has never hated him more, disingenuous as it is.

Never once had Molly ever expected to feel guilty for being alive. Viscerally, he rails against the emotion.  _ Lucien had his chance and he threw it away; no matter how much they care, that doesn’t change anything. _

Circling his camp to dig it out more thoroughly, he catches Yasha’s lingering stare, melancholy and searching.

_ You’re loved too, you bastard. Not your fault you came back and  _ he _ didn’t. He doesn’t deserve your pity, even if his friends- _

But he cannot bring himself to finish the thought. Glowering, he moves more snow with a little extra vicious relish, which is, frankly, juvenile, and rationalizes it by reminding himself that he’s only three years old.

He’s allowed.

Eventually, the Nein rejoin the larger group, seemingly having straightened out whatever nonsense was between them. ( _ Me, _ Molly thinks.  _ I’m the nonsense. _ ) They’ve just begun clearing their own area, presumably for the dome, when Jester sneaks up on him.

“Are you going to push us in the lava when we go to sleep?”

_ Well, talk about a loaded question _ .

“Hopefully not, if you don't give us a reason.”

She doesn’t press the issue and for that much, he finds he’s thankful.

They spend the next several minutes waffling back and forth between experimenting with the river and clearing their place, Caleb having set himself up to run the dome as a ritual. It’s his own fault, Molly laments, for making them push on without more sleep, or they’d be comfy in the tower and he’d be able to sneak to Caleb for conversation and comfort.

Instead, Caleb eyes him in between sigils, warily instead of conspiratorially, and Molly is irrevocably reminded of that morning’s accidental magic, the snow drifted dome collapsing over his estranged friends. Instantly, he’s frustrated again, but there’s no outlet for the build-up, so he crushes it down inside him instead, like the stone of a fruit, letting it land heavy in his stomach where it stays, indefinitely, not dismissed, unable to forget.

Festering.

Why did he want them with him again? Why did he think that this was preferable to being with the Tomb Takers alone?

It’s torture. It’s just torture.

He wants to scream, to cry, to pull his swords and rage and when he’s done, he just wants to fall back into the snow and let the elements hide him from the world completely, frozen in time.

_ But that won’t fix anything. You want to be free, don’t you? _

“Yes.” He says it aloud, because aloud makes it real, even if it is only a whisper of a breath on the breeze.

“Hey Lucien?” Jester once again startles him from his dour thoughts. The sound of that name on her lips directed at him does him no favours. “Have you guys crossed this river before?”

“Uh huh,” he mutters, because what else is there to say?

“How do you do it?” Caleb. Molly’s ears prickle and he swallows the urge to frown at the growing concern that Caleb doesn’t trust him anymore. It’s almost enough to make him forget that he doesn’t  _ actually _ know how.

“You'll see in the morning.” It’s a good enough hedge, and why would Lucien tell them anyways? He probably wouldn’t trust them not to make off without the Tomb Takers.

Caduceus Clay laughs at him and for the first time in a long time, Molly isn’t sure what to feel. “I mean, we can do it just fine on our own, so…”

"You asked me."

“Well, I mean…” Clay trails off ambiguously. “But we'll tell you how we do it.”

"Okay.” It’s getting harder to keep the sharp edge from his tone, so he lets it go, just a little. Maybe it’ll even help sell the play. In the moment he doesn’t care. Anything to vent a little of the steam. “We'll swap tips in the morning."

Caduceus eyes him, intently. “All right,” he says eventually and Molly begins to wonder if it was a good idea to allow Caleb to let the tall fellow in on their subterfuge after all. 

"A few more hours of daylight,” he abruptly changes the subject. It feels good to have that modicum of control. “Who's up for some lunch?"

“Some lunch, did you say?” Veth asks and Molly rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, or supper, depending. We've been traveling quite a bit."

Agreement comes quickly and it’s the distraction he’s needed, desperately, from the events of the day. A fire is drawn up and they set about distributing rations, sharing even, with the Nein, though Caleb only pops a single strange round gelatinous ball in his mouth. Squinching his nose at the choice, Molly watches as Caleb catches his gaze, quirking a brow in response.

In the tower, tomorrow, he’ll make the cats bring them food, Molly vows to himself. Caleb might have cleaned up nice, but he’s still thin as a rail. And that certainly doesn’t look like enough to do more than sustain.

At first, they eat in silence. Molly can feel their eyes on him, much as he had the rest of the day, but Caleb watches him most peculiarly. Something between worry and earnestness and mistrust that feels vaguely like a persistent bee sting to the foot; every time Molly looks at him, the sting redoubles.

Eventually, however, that lingering stare coalesces into the threads of a conversation. Warily, almost purposefully irritatingly, Caleb sets the wheels in motion. “As long as we are sharing a meal, perhaps we can learn a little bit more about each other.” With a brief flourish of his hand, the city is born in the flames and Molly stiffens at first, then lets himself relax. “Are you going to make us wait until we arrive before we know what you intend to do, or can you share a little bit in advance?”

_ What are you doing? _ "Bread crumbs can be fun," he responds, guileless in tone, though he hopes that Caleb can see in his own persistent glare, the implicit query. "Well, let's see. If we're going to be learning about each other, what do you want: where it started or where it's going?"

“Well.” Caleb’s smile is wry and thin, but his eyes gleam bright in the flaming glow and Molly searches there for a clue. “I am a fan of history. Let's start there.”

Beside him Cree shifts, but Molly breathes out, eases back and lets old habit take over. They’d told him enough, after all, to handle some of this. And Lucien – if he’s pegged the fellow right – probably wouldn’t be looking to show his whole hand at the first sign of cooperation, especially the farce that is this tense, supposedly temporary union.

“Well,” he begins, drawing back from Cree’s first explanations. Her first subtle reminders. “Me and my friends here, we're-- we're from a disparate collective, you would say, called the Claret Orders."

Caleb blinks, tilts his head a tinge. “Like wines?”

“Like wine. So some of us grew up together. Some of us just found like-minded interest in taking the things we learned and eventually sticking out on our own because we've all got an inherent dislike of authority. And in our travels, much like you, we were traveling with the good lady.” The vague thread is easy enough to spin at this point, especially considering that he got some of Lucien’s side of the story previously from Caleb.

“We found ourselves hired by her and others for some time, made some good coin, did some travel. And I found a secret. I found a little peek into something beyond.” Almost without thinking, he points to the fire. "Something with promise, knowledge. And when I looked in,” he lifted his gaze, pointedly fixing it on Caleb, “it looked back. So at that point, the Nonagon… became more of the… presence. So that's where it started specifically. Found a book. You seem to be fond of books.” A book they now have back in their possession. A book that Lucien could read. A book that Molly, for all he can decipher a few basic things, given the time and determination, cannot.  _ Oh, Caleb, wherever would I be without you?  _ “Heavy reader?" he asks instead.

Finally –  _ finally _ – Caleb smirks. “One or two.”

There’s a pause; the Nein do not seem forthcoming, Caleb hesitating, perhaps on the grounds of coming off too familiar. On the other hand, Molly doesn’t know what to say next.

So he asks a question for which he  _ hopes _ he knows the answer, not that he’s expecting to hear it from them at all.

“So what are you all doing here? I know you're certainly curious. You wouldn't follow this far, but you have… a history.”  _ With me _ . “Are you coming to join? Are you coming to stop me?"  _ Are you coming to help me? _

Again, it’s Caleb to the rescue, hedging on their end equally, if not moreso. “Well, it's a lot of coincidences, really. We were quite fond of our friend. So that alone does draw us in a bit.”

Painfully aware that he’s not alone, Molly holds back his sigh of relief at hearing the words, even though he already knows what Caleb thinks. Having it reconfirmed is a balm, desperately won. "Well,” he smiles lasciviously, gesturing at his own visage with a wave of his hand. “It's hard not to be fond of  _ this _ ."

“You're not entirely different from the friend we knew,” Caleb says. But Molly can read between the lines, hears the truth enmeshed within, the further desperate reassurance that is the drumbeat repetition of his own name.

_ Mollymauk Tealeaf. Mollymauk Tealeaf. Mollymauk Tealeaf. _

And then, from out of  _ nowhere _ , Jester smiles, a smile for which Molly has  _ never _ been on the receiving end, and utters the very last thing he  _ ever _ expected her to say to the person she believes is Lucien, the Nonagon.

“We’ve seen you with food on your penis.”

It’s deadpan, matter of fact, and  _ ice _ cold. Colder even than the current environs, and instantaneously every member of the Tomb Takers starts laughing raucously.

Molly, stunned out of his own laughter, can barely keep from gaping at her in awe. 

“All of us.” Caleb’s eyes sparkle with private glee.

“You tried to pass it off as the plague,” Beau says, picking up the thread.

“You covered it in egg.”

“It was real gross and a real bad idea, to be totally honest.”

Molly  _ almost _ splutters, except that, she’s not wrong. Clearly, far more so than a lot of his memories, Molly recalls the cold, rubbery, slimy feeling of the egg on sensitive areas. Truly disgusting; equally hilarious. It kills him, just a bit, to have to deny it.

“Wasn’t me.” Quick, crisp, over and done like he’d never had to say it at all.

Still, it’s hardly painless.

But Beau – and he loves her, he really,  _ really _ loves her and he’s going to tell her, first chance he gets – unfailingly cannot help but make to get in the last word.

With an arch of her brow, the shot is fired. “Same dick.”

Laughter burbles out of him unremittingly. Like a daffodil, coming out of the thaw, he almost feels like himself for the first time since he was brought back again. Like he’s not been erased out of sheer necessity. Only hidden, for safekeeping. Locked away in a place for which only the Nein have the key. "Well,” he manages through his laughter. “I guess there are some secrets I don't have to introduce at some point, right?"

When eventually the amusement dies off, Caleb picks back up. Only half listening as he describes the coincidences that lead them back to one another (but nothing, Molly’s heart insists is  _ ever, truly _ a coincidence), Molly spends most of his time trying to fathom just what has wrought such change, not only to Caleb’s grooming, but also his habits. They let him speak. They don’t seek to interrupt. The Nein  _ look _ to Caleb in a way Molly’s certain Caleb would never have been comfortable with before, standing as he is as their first line of defense against the complication that is…well… Molly himself.

Not a one seems surprised, so it can’t be new. Once more, he finds himself dwelling on how much he’s missed, but in the moment, he can’t help but appreciate the change for what it is, instead of pitying himself for having been absent to watch such a visceral transformation in the making.

He’s happy for Caleb, he realizes. Something good happened in the time he was gone, and, at least for the moment, he’s content in that knowledge, even if it won’t be enough for long.

Here and there Molly provides the requisite responses to Caleb’s ongoing rehash, but then Caleb starts prodding again, silently urging, as if to say  _ give me something to work with here _ , and Molly scrambles to oblige.

"Well, speaking of intersections, the book that I found, fascinating read. Couldn't understand most of it, but I have my… limitations.” He knows that Caleb wants to see it, just as clearly as he knows that all hope of fixing things is lost if he  _ doesn’t _ get that opportunity, and yet, there’s something beneath his skin that wants to hold it back.

( _ Out of fear. What if Caleb reads it and ends up like me? _ But no, he cannot lie to himself entirely.  _ It belongs to me _ , whispers the part of him he cannot recognize. _ Mine and mine alone _ .)

“- the title?" Caleb is saying when Molly resurfaces.

Blankly, he blinks, realizing that he doesn’t know. But again, that doesn’t matter when Lucien should be lying to them anyways. “There's not much of a title to it.” Molly shrugs. “It's more of a journal."

A journal that’s burning a hole in his pack the longer they discuss it.

But it’s Beau and not Caleb who makes the offer. “Would you like a second set of eyes on it?”

"That’ll… _ depend _ .” He thinks back to the conversation with Cree, with Caleb in the tower. “I've done that once already.” The gorge rises in his throat. “Didn't end well...”  _ Screaming, she’s screaming, the blood is pouring from her eyes, she’s like a doll under his power-  _ “For her." 

But Beau keeps pushing. “Seems to end well for you.”

Molly turns his cringing grimace into the slyest smile of which he is capable.“So far so good. We were seeking somebody who we knew could possibly understand some of the more  _ complicated _ aspects of this journal. Having done previous work with the lady, went to her made a deal, a contract. She promised to help...” It feels like he’s talking in circles, saying the same things he’s already said, over and over. Eventually, they’re going to catch on. “At first, it was just for fun. But then-“ He knows what then, intimately, even if he can’t recall the specific occurrence he’s describing. He  _ knows _ because he’s experienced it. The sensation settles over him again, terrible and powerful and all encompassing. “The dreams started coming. Something was spilling into them. And it wants my help.”

There, in the fire still, is Caleb’s conjured vision, unearthly, insidious, haunting. 

"I had to follow through. I had to learn that which was promised.” His own experience ends there, and for that much he’s grateful. Once more, he imagines that shivering would be appropriate, but no such action follows suit. Instead, Molly swallows hard and redirects, picking back up with the narrative that Cree had so earnestly encouraged for him to recall. “So trying to reach past these limitations, the lady was to help, and she's a trained liar. And the ritual was… sabotaged.”

A body, buried in the ground.

Empty.

Abandoned.

_ And I was born. _

“She…shattered me.” That was the word Cree had used, though Molly’s still not entirely sure how appropriate it is. Isn’t sure, because he’s  _ not  _ Lucien. He’s  _ not.  _ And yet… But he pushes it down again. Can’t stand to think about it when he can’t fall into the arms of someone who loves  _ him, Mollymauk _ , in search of comfort. “She took the book for herself, tried to take up the same path, but – “ Mirthlessly, he laughs. “Here I am. So, in a way, I'm actually thankful.” Because complicated as it is, it’s nonetheless true. “But one can be thankful and vengeful at the same time."

Caleb is riveted, but Molly can see the working threads of his mind taut with mental effort. “Why do you think that one of these pieces of you landed in your grave and ended up in the circus?”

Molly’s stumped. In all his time with the Tomb Takers, it’s not something that’s been discussed at all, not something he even knows how to begin explaining, simply because he hasn’t the faintest idea. Simply because he isn’t sure what happened to him at all.

Narrowing his eyes, he glances from face to face, a sweep of the lot. “Maybe we’ll find that out.” 

But it’s not enough of an answer to satisfy. Jester blinks, the picture of seriousness, fixes him with her open, trusting expression. “Do you think they missed any? Pieces of you, I mean?”

"I'm here, aren't I?"  _ It’s me! _ he wants to scream, let it echo through the tundra.  _ It’s  _ me _. I’m here.  _ I’m  _ here, Jester. Molly. Your Molly. _

“Are you?”

Whatever small favours the Moonweaver is still granting him, he manages, somehow, not to cry.

"Well, lucky enough, it appears I am.” 

Fjord’s arms cross at that. He and Beau are the most closed off by far, sheltering themselves in the only way they know how. It’s easier that way, really, at least with Fjord, because the less Molly has to interact with them, the less difficulty he has in keeping up the ruse.

All the same, they’re still curious and Veth takes up the questioning. The dark is finally beginning to fall. Flickering campfire flame baths them all an eerie orange, and Molly’s too taxed to play at answering questions for which he hasn’t the faintest bit of context. It’s just about the most exhausting experience he’s had in his short lives. "Maybe we'll talk more about this tomorrow.”  _ When I can speak to Caleb in private, without the burden of lying.  _ “It's been a fun conversation,” he grouses out sarcastically, “but it seems very one-sided."

Veth shrugs. “Well, you can feel free to ask us anything. About the times, you know, we've died or come back to life or got split into pieces and sent into memory prisons.”

“Read weird books,” Caduceus throws in as a quip, and Molly pulls back, still completely thrown by the unknown companion that’s been added into the equation. But it’s an opportunity he can’t pass up to get a bit of what he wants before the next day. Before the tower.

"You've gone through quite a bit of danger.”  _ Without me. All without me. I should have been there. _ “Some would say blindly in some cases, just to follow us up here. I'll ask again: Beyond just idle curiosity, what is it you want?"

_ Me _ , he pleads, irrationally. Another tense silence ensues. They can’t say it outright. They’re not  _ that _ stupid. But he wants it all the same.  _ Say you want me _ .

He wonders if they’ve talked about it. If they’ve made plans. If their goal, really and truly, is to save him, though they don’t understand just what that means. He wonders if, even though they’re here, they’ve given up on him completely.

_ Except Caleb. Never Caleb. _

And it’s Caleb, in the end, who levels with him once more. The barest comfort when none else is to be found.

“We find ourselves very curious about the power you yourself are all consumed with. You're not alone,” a bright quality floods Caleb’s eyes, biting. Piercing. “You have friends.” The word is carefully placed on the field between them, a geode of truth which only a few understand. “We are accomplished people. I think we may be curious if there is room for us in your plans.”

_ Always, _ Molly thinks ferociously.  _ Always and forever. _

But he can’t say that. So he doesn’t. "There might be still. There's— it's hard to explain. There's a part of  _ me _ that just— I feel like you all have a part to play still. Like you've— you've use to me."

“Well,” Beau says. “We got visions, too. From the same city.” 

“We are beyond coincidence at this point,” Caleb fits in, though it feels less for Molly’s benefit this time and more… something else. 

Jester swipes at the folders of her skirt, smoothing them out where they drape down past her thickly stockinged knees. “Do any of your companions have dreams of the city?” she asks, as innocent as ever.

He’s about to answer, when Cree’s low tones sound in his ear. "The dreams that we have are granted through Lucien, through the connection that he's offered."

A collective frown cascades over their faces, one by one, and Molly, for a split second, is confused, until he realizes just what Cree means.

Just what the Nein don’t know.

"We do not have such dreams,” she continues, oblivious. “The Nonagon, he's the one who has been chosen. We follow in his steps, his guidance."

Molly feels her soft touch on his arm and he looks back to her reflexively. She’s smiling with sickening reverence, sycophantic, apostolic, sanctificate. "It is through him." Something must show on his face – trepidation? Anger? – because she stops her words in their tracks. "Well. We trust him. His vision, and in Somnovum." She looks up with reverence, though not at him again, and closes her eyes, clutching her necklace.

“Do you think you're special, Lucien?” The vulgarity with which Beau flings the accusation cuts like a blade, but then, he’s used to that. “I mean, someone who wakes up every day, thinks they're different, blessed.”

As if welcoming her to look at him, he holds his arms out to his sides. “What do you think?"

Jester grins. “I think you're dreamy.”

Unable to help it, he grins back. “Then we agree on that, at least.”

For the moment, it seems like it’s over. He’ll be granted the reprieve of silence – if not sleep. They’re busy eating, the conversation come to a natural end, and eventually, with the darkness of a northern night descending upon them, they’ll be able to press forward into the morning to come and the crossing of this daunting river.

“Your dreams. What happens in them?”

The firbolg again. Something about him is unnerving. Maybe it’s the way he watches, maybe it’s the way he just seems to  _ know _ , but whatever it is, Molly doesn’t like it. It makes him feel transparent, flimsy, like Caduceus’ barest word could shatter him all over again.

“What happens in yours?” Molly fires back. To his surprise, Caduceus’ brow twitches and he shifts his lean weight back. Away. The pleasure he takes in it is small, spiteful, and wholly uncalled for. But Molly doesn’t  _ know _ Caduceus. Not like he knows the others. “I’ll share when you do,” he drops the ultimatum.

There are no more questions after that.

Eventually they bed down in Caleb’s dome. Eventually they sleep. All night long, Molly watches them as they take their shifts, whispering together, casting him furtive glances, or slumbering at turns.

All the while, longing carves out his heart piece by piece with each passing minute. 

The stars pass above him like pinpoint embroidery done on a sheer black linen. For a while he watches them, their distant winking faces occasionally obscured by the passing of a misty cloud until one by one they go out, snuffed like candles, leaving the darkness even more complete than before. 

The fire, too, has died down, Molly surmises without turning to look, because the dull glow of embers no longer casts its touch over the toes of his boots. 

Just pitch black. 

And in the dark, wholly and completely submerged, Molly feels, despite his lack of sleep, awake, truly awake, for the first time in a very long while. Twitching and tingling, the nerve endings in his hands, his feet, all up his spine alight, almost burning with intensity. His mind is open, his thoughts, like a mental paintbrush, spread incoherently across the canvas of the blackened tundra and light, red, the light of his own eyes, flares ablaze in multitudinous spots, the writhing consciousness of nightmare and dream. 

Nine of them surpass the rest, grow larger, brighter. 

Numbly, Molly reaches a hand beneath his thick coat sleeve to pinch at the delicate skin on his wrist. He feels the spark of pain, but the vision does not cease. 

Awake, but dreaming. 

There are no voices, not properly - there never have been - but he hears the intentions just the same, the ringing, echoing of legion, their ideas one, yet incongruous, unsystematic in their delivery, each one falling in uncoordinated cacophony with another, artful, yet without plan. 

Somehow, he sees the patterns woven there, the enneadic ritual that cycles beneath the chaos, beautiful in its disharmony. Imagines from it the arching golden lines of sigils he has no recollection of learning; runes and letters jumbled, he pushes them out in starburst around him, the architect of the dreamscape, making from the ataxic display sense, if only to himself. 

Impression and instinct guide his craft. 

It’s beautiful, it’s terrible, it’s important. 

It  _ is. _

When the stars reignite an incalculable time later, Molly cannot quite recall what form it was he had forged from the existential and unearthly matter of his waking dreams.

Molly can’t help but feel a certain kinship with the lava river. Even in his head it sounds ludicrous, but it’s still apt. Two things which should be able to coexist, co-existing, despite one another. A thriving contradiction of nature.

Mollymauk Tealeaf in a nutshell.

By all rights, by everything that he’s ever been and done, he should have crumpled under the weight of his lies long ago. And yet, his sheer determination has gotten him this far, and is still carrying him, though the pace has run a little slow.

Both literally and metaphorically. 

They creep in clusters over the summoned snow which flows unnaturally over the lava. The Nein are behind the Tomb Takers and he, as per the usual, is in the lead with Cree not too far behind, all chary in their footing and quiet as possible to mitigate any arousal of the elemental spirits that live within the magma. What a pleasant surprise  _ that _ had been. 

They’re two thirds of the way across when it all goes to hell. 

Zoran is...large. And while Molly’s seen enough of him in action to know just how capable he is, there’s something to be said about the fact that he’s not exactly the most graceful. So when he steps wrong, crashing with the heavy threshold crest to the ground, it most certainly makes a resonant sound. 

Almost instantaneously, they’re beset. An arcane fog thickens the ground, but to no avail before it dissipates again, the elementals springing up through the snow cover, rapidly melting the only barrier between them all and a fiery death. 

He’s so preoccupied with getting out of the way as they curl and dance their deadly way through the limited protection the snow cover offers that he almost misses it when they fly over him. He’s not precisely sure who is who – or rather, who is what – but he doesn’t really care.

It’s but the fleeting thought of a moment that does it.

_ Don’t leave me _ .

Without recourse, their forms are unintentionally banished and they plummet from the sky, coming down hard, but luckily, safely on the snow.

“We stick together!” he shouts, in lieu of the apology he cannot give, and makes to swipe the swords he’s pulled across his arms, their blades springing with his customary ice. It’s all the time they have. Unspoken, they all push forward, the Nein ahead of him now, running like mad against the steadily thinning paths open to them beyond. He does his level best, slashing at the featureless, single minded creatures between headlong dashing towards the embankment.

Molly feels the burn in his legs, the taut stretch of his muscles, the familiar callouses against the grips of his scimitars, breaths in the welcome opportunity for release and gives in, recklessly, to the hazy red of combat. There’s something about it, something exhilarating that lives in his bones, like it’s been slumbering all the while and only now just stretched out in mirror of his muscles. He’s just ducked another elemental when he hears the wrenching scream. Usually, it’s one he hears more so in reflection of rage, but he’s heard it in pain too. He knows this cry, just as acutely familiar as the mapping of the tattoos across his own hands.

Yasha.

_ What have I done?! _

But even as he reflexively swings back for her, she’s been righted, and Caduceus is healing her and he knows that she’ll be alright.

Doesn’t mean it  _ feels _ alright.

They’re doing this because of  _ him _ . She’s been hurt because of  _ him. _

There’s no time to dwell on it; just another item to add to the mental tally of apologies he’s been keeping. Gnashing his teeth, sharp incisors biting a bit over his lip as he snarls at his foes, Molly throws himself into the fight, into the madcap dash and tries not to think about everything else.

Occasionally, he sees some member of the Nein or another in the guise of great birds, swooping with a Tomb Taker or two, or one of their own away over the lava ribbons in the snow.

He hears a bit of a shout and out of the corner of his eye, Molly sees Cree skid, her foot hitting that molten glow. There’s no hesitation in him when he veers his trajectory towards her, hauling her out. Later, he’ll unpack the clawing fingers of fondness for her that pry at his heart. Tugging her by the arm behind him, he calls out, “Come on!” and hauls off once more.

Not too far off from them, Beau twists and ducks, loops and bends, diverting the elementals from their preferred courses. All the same, they’ve left gulfs uncomfortably wide to leap over, but he feels a prickling at his neck and  _ knows _ more than sees the polymorphed form of Jester swooping towards him. Trustingly, he throws own his arms to his sides, scimitars still in his grasp, still gleaming with frost as she comes in close, her talons clicking as they close gently, if hastily, around his form. Beside him is Veth, and they soar, voiceless, through the frigid air and over the deadly magma streams towards the snowbank.

A few clever acrobatics from Beauregard and a little aid from Fjord who is  _ flying _ – since when was that a thing??? – and they’re all safe and sound, breathless, a bit singed in some spots, scorched in others, but generally alright enough that Molly finds himself simply grateful that no one lost a limb.

Really, the only odd thing is that Zoran is clutching the pack, whose straps had totally separated, and Otis is glaring at Veth.

"Right,” he exhales in relief. “Well done. Apologies for the rough start. I just don't like being…” He can’t look at them. Can’t look at  _ Yasha _ . “Abandoned."

They make a fuss at him about it of course, but how was he to know they could all fly? Imploringly, he manages a glance at Caleb whose expression is closed off as expertly as ever. But there’s still a full day ahead of them, so as soon as the requite grousing and bickering is through and everyone is sufficiently healed, they head off once again. It doesn’t take long for the low fog to roll in, ice crystals forming in Molly’s hair and on his eyelashes, irritatingly enough.

In short order, it’s evident that they’re lost. Not that Molly ever  _ really _ knew the direction in the first place, but he’s at least meant to  _ look _ as though he knows where he’s going. The frustration builds again, though it’s less pent up than before, thanks to their little brush with near death.

Despite the intention to do so, they don’t really talk as they walk. The sun’s not quite down when Beauregard finally clears her throat.

“Lucien, are sure you know where you're going?”

Despite himself, Molly smiles. “You know, these lands are a bit strange.”

“Uh-huh.” And that’s Beau for him. Skeptical as ever.

But two can play at the sarcasm game. “And I think we're all trying to guide each other in a very incorrect direction-”

“No.  _ No _ .” Her tone is adamant. “We're all following  _ you _ as the de facto leader. We are not all following each other. We're following  _ you _ .”

"I don't know,” he continues to toy with her. “It seems like quite a bit of you are making your own paths as well.” And just when she’s on the verge of retort, he gives in, robbing her of the pleasure. “Yes, I'm lost, all right! You don't have to be a dick about it!"

The laughter is raucous, welcome, familiar.

At turns, he both hates and loves it. Veth explaining for Beau, Beau crowing about her successful one-up in douchebaggery, Fjord’s sardonic aside. The titter about hazing and compasses and- There’s a saline burning at the corners of Molly’s eyes. All of it leaves him aching and desperate and melancholy. All things he’s never enjoyed feeling outside the occasional sexual context – and even then, that had never include melancholy.

"Well, we've all had a day.” Saying it like that feels…underwhelming. To say the least. “Let's go ahead and bed down. Take a rest here in a safe spot and we'll continue on first thing in the morning."

This time, it’s Fjord, Moonweaver bless him, who cracks a parting shot. “Do you need help finding your bed or should we- Just kidding. A little humor between friends.”

Artfully, Molly glowers, but inwardly, he clings to the idea that their friendship might  _ actually _ survive his deception. Well, that is if  _ they _ all survive the Somnovum.

“Wait,” Yasha asks, interrupting his train of thought. “I actually have a question about that because when— Do you sleep?

The chill creeps into his bones, but it’s not from the cold.

It is with a careful, measured tone that he replies, "Not for a while." He still can’t look at her, but looking at Caleb and Caduceus, isn’t any better, both frowning as they are, brows furrowed in contemplation and concern.

“One of the many gifts of the Somnovum.”  _ Careful, now. Soon, you’ll get to tell them what they need to hear. Don’t get reckless.  _ “More time to think, to contemplate and to watch."

“I like sleeping,” Caduceus comments, Jester concurring almost instantly. But, in typical fashion, it’s Caleb who pushes him further.

“Yeah, do you miss the dreaming?”

It’s code, it has to be, but Molly’s first concern is less that and more why Caleb is bothering at all when they’ll have the tower and lots of time to talk to one another without pretense. Unless he’d used a spell powerful enough to keep them from that option. Somehow, though, Molly’s sure that’s not the case. But staring hard at Caleb isn’t going to prise the answers from his unyielding expression.

"Oh, I can still dream.”

“Ooh!” Jester’s eyes go wide and Molly grimaces with instant regret. “Wait, do, like, some of the Somnovum sleep while others are awake? So, like, part of you is sleeping while other parts— is that how it works? Do you work in cycles like—?”

“Are you dreaming right now?” Caleb prompts humorously against the laughter.

By some miracle, Molly manages a smile. "Not at the moment, but I wouldn't mind some perhaps in a bit if we can get a bit more comfortable." Expectantly, he glances to Caleb, who shrugs.

“I have the tower, which you have all been in before. That was out of urgent necessity. If you do not wish to partake-“

“Oh, we will,” Molly quickly cuts him off. Behind him, the Tomb Takers murmur in appreciation. There’s nothing like the arcane comfort and warmth in the middle of their inhospitable surroundings, but the rest of the Nein, Caleb and Caduceus aside, look none too sent with the idea of the Tomb Takers invading their space again. Eventually, Jester shrugs.

“It’s your tower, Caleb.”

He needs no further encouragement and within minutes the tower is before them.

For the first time, Molly enters. Of course, he’d exited before, but it’s quite something else to enter the tower while conscious to recall it. The door itself is unremarkable, really. Just a door in the middle of the tundra, surrounded by an inch of golden glow, the seeping, teasing indication of warmth and respite. But when Caleb opens it, it’s like stepping into a painting.

Instantaneously, with his first step across the threshold and onto the hardwood floor, Molly feels at ease.

How long it will last remains to be seen.

“Perhaps we should all get comfortable. Clean. Before we enjoy a meal, yes?” he more or less instructs, though the question at the end is implied by his inflection. No one argues. The Nein look like they desperately want the opportunity to chew Caleb out for making the decision to share the tower unilaterally. As they all float upwards together, Molly spares a modicum of empathy for the onslaught he knows that Caleb will endure on his behalf, but soon (he hopes) it will all be forgotten and forgiven when the truth can finally come to light.

While the Nein all follow Caleb to some unknown chamber where they can presumably have a private conversation, Molly makes for his own room. He’s barely inside when he gets a knock and, warily, goes to answer the door.

It’s Otis. She’s glowering, but there’s an undercurrent of concern that weighs there; he’s always found them to be the strangest and most unsettling of the lot, if just as devoted as the rest despite all the twitching and the darting eyes.

“What is it?”

“The halfling,” she responds, glancing furtively about as if searching for any listening felines. “She tried to cast a spell on me. Then pretended it wasn’t what I thought. Thought you should know, Nonagon.”

And even though he isn’t the Nonagon, Molly’s grateful all the same.

“A handy bit of knowledge. D’you think she’s nervous?”

“Oh, most assuredly.”

He nods, grateful, but dismissive. “We’ll see what happens next then.”

“Of course. Just thought you ought to know.”

The rest of the time, he’s left alone. The first order of business is a luxuriating bath, curing the numb tingle of his bones and the sparking ache and burn of his muscles, and he follows it up by toweling off and pampering a bit with some of the finer oils. For a while he debates about one of the more subtle nail lacquers, but foregoes it. The longer he dallies, the longer it will take until he and Caleb (and Caduceus) can finally converse.

In the salon the Nein are waiting, all warily glancing up at him he enters, and one by one the Tomb Takers file in as well, as ever his shadows, while the Nein glower. It’s almost creepy, how in synch the whole thing ends up being, the way they walk in step. Not that he’d meant for it to happen. And yet, it had. A communal area without the community. Just plain wrong.

Molly doesn’t  _ quite _ resist the urge to stick out his tongue a bit in distaste.

Ultimately, he settles himself by the massive fireplace, framed by the mural of his own coat; unsubtle, perhaps to those who know the truth, but he can’t help it. He’s never been one for subtle, preferring to stand out in order to disappear. The louder and more provocative he’d been, the happier people were to get rid of and forget him.

Counterintuitive perhaps, but it suits Molly just fine. He’s never been one to fix what’s not broken.

Eventually, Caleb joins him by the fire in a mockery of privacy; sure, they’re together, face to face, no one looking over their shoulders, but the Tomb Takers and the Nein alike look upon their compatriots’ confronts with equal uneasy and indignation.

Soft, Caleb speaks. “I want to bring Beau over. She’s too unsettled.”

_ Well, so much for that. _

Caleb beckons Beau with little more than a glance and two become three.

“So,” he begins, clear and open. “We don't like each other. You don't like us, we don't like you. But we are working towards the same thing. We have similar goals and we have days left before we reach our destination. Tomorrow, you all may have a hot meal and a bed and cat massages and anything you can dream of once again. If we can work together. And right now, we do not know what you are doing.”

Molly sucks in a breath, preparing to respond, but Caleb saves him the trouble.

“You have been keeping us captive for multiple nights. You started this on the wrong foot.” His eyes darken, stormy. “You make an effort to keep us from bolting at the first chance we have.”

Straightening up a bit at the tone of accusation –  _ It’s merited _ , he reminds himself – Molly sets his expression grim and just the wrong side of haughty. “If you want to leave, you can leave.”  _ But please, please don’t. You should, but I- But don’t. _

“How do you reckon you can say that?” Beau is no less vicious in her denunciation of his accidental tactics. Not that he can very well explain them away with the truth.  _ Oh yes, Beau, that was an accident. I am just chronically terrified that you’ll abandon me, is all, and oh, completely and utterly  _ out of my depth _ when it comes to these powers I didn’t even know I had! _ No, nothing he could say would ever be enough to placate her.

“Right,” Caleb picks up. “We'll just take this precious package that you care so much about and we'll just head off on our own, yeah?”

For one, unbearable moment, Molly almost believes he’ll allow them to do just that.  _ But he won’t. They  _ won’t. He swallows hard.

"Your presence is a convenience."

Beau rolls her eyes, dissatisfied as ever and twice as unimpressed. Belatedly, Molly has a world shattering revelation. Caleb had said she was unsettled.

_ Beau _ was unsettled.

Beau  _ misses _ him.

Floored by it as he is, Molly almost misses her next words.

“You have thwarted every spell we have put forward to simply survive.” She jabs a finger in his direction. “Tell us, how we are not captives in this situation?”

Tongue darting out to lick his lips, Molly regulates his breath as purposefully as he can. “I’m careful. Especially around practitioners of magic. Have a bit of a  _ history _ .” He plays the Vess DeRogna card happily. “Especially those that walked alongside such individuals. Pardon me if I mistrust of certain aspects of the arcane that, I don't know, might be hanging out in the unspoken wings of our arrangement? So I'm careful. I'm not offering for you to leave, but if you were, it would be annoying.” So,  _ so _ ungodly annoying. “What you have isn't so precious. It's just convenient."  _ It’s you all that are precious. Not the crest. _

Maybe Caleb takes his meaning for intention, maybe not. But his desire to just cut the pleasantries short, if they can rightly be called so, is growing stronger by the minute.

“Let's save some time,” Caleb says, almost as though he can hear Molly’s thoughts.

Can he?

Irrationally, Molly gives it a whirl.  _ Caleb? Darling if you can hear me, blink twice. _

Unsurprisingly, if a little disappointing, nothing comes of the experiment. Caleb simply continues to speak and Molly lets him, listening carefully, lest he agree to something out of character for Lucien.

“Here's what I propose. I'm very curious. I love books and learning. Show me your book. Don't give it to me. Show it to us. Let us look at it together— look at it together and try to ascertain what it is you have been unable to. You can stop us from leaving at any time, it seems. Share a little bit more of your knowledge. Enjoy a bed again tomorrow night. What do you have to lose? We can't leave. We've tried twice.”

He pretends, under Beauregard’s intense scrutiny, to consider the offer carefully.

“I’ll think on it.”

“When?” she chimes in, insistent. “Like tonight?”

“Tonight. While I rest.” Molly considers toying with her, throwing in a little banter, but his mood is low again, his desperation high, and he finds he doesn’t have the energy for any more verbal sparring.

They both nod and step away, heading back over to the couch.

For a while, he just sits and watches. The space is enormous, several stories high, and the Tomb Takers are milling about curiously, pulling books from the shelves at random, glancing with curious focus at the stained glass windows, or picking up the little statuary and trinkets distributed artfully throughout the space.

Only when Jester clears her throat does Molly realize she’s standing beside him. Primly, her hands are clasped in front of her, and it's then that he realizes that it wasn’t actually a skirt she’d smoothed the night before, but actually the long, belled out folds of her winter coat. The costume she wears is elaborately decorated, almost to the point of rivalling his old coat, though this is far less garish. Subtle and pastel and pretty. Very Jester.

“I do tarot readings, if you’re interested. That could be fun!”

In her peripherals, Molly sees Beau almost lunge from her seat, but Caleb’s rapid hand about her wrist holds both her physical self and any vocalizations back. Quickly he rediverts his attention to Jester, waiting patiently.

“Do you want me to read your tarot cards?”

"Certainly." The word is out of his mouth before he can think about it. A tiny, invasive strain of trepidation tugs at him uncomfortably, worrying what they might say. What they might reveal to her.

How they might fall in judgement of him.

What ending they might foretell for the perilous journey ahead.

_ Too late now, Molly _ , he thinks and invites her to sit. Gaily, with a broad, bright smile, she alights beside him on the hearth.

“Really? You know, I learned this from Molly. Does that change your opinion of it?”

The affection he feels for her in that moment bursts and blossoms with the most exquisite pain. “No.” Emotionless, the word falls from his lips. “I'm just curious."

With unrepentant joy, Jester pulls his own beloved deck from her pocket. Anxious to look it over, he sees, as she carefully shuffles them up a bit, that there are new images painted in a style unlike his own. He has to press his eyes shut, almost forgets himself by starting to feign a yawn, in order to keep from tearing over the implication.

A piece of him, lovingly carried, lovingly cared for. There, beneath her hands, he feels her touch on the cards as that of his own skin.

Whispering ghosts of the friends they once were.

He listens as she charmingly, if a little uncertainly, goes about explaining what he ought to do. Draws the cards as she orders, flips them as she beckons.

(The last time someone had read his tarot, he’d been so new he could barely speak. Desmond, at the carnival, flipping cards. He can’t recall which they were, wasn’t capable of it really, then. A part of him has always wondered if the soothing conciliations about home and family and comfort which Desmond had provided to him were little more than kind lies.

For as much as the cards are a con, theirs real power in belief. And Molly, for better or worse, has always believed.)

“Okay,” she begins once the three lay between them, almost trembling in the firelight flicker, like they’re alive and as anxious as he to be held by him again. “So flip over the first card. This is the card of your past. This card-“ She pauses, cocks her head. But Molly doesn’t need her commentary to know. The Calamity. He’d drawn the Calamity. Can remember acutely the first time he’d been told the tale. How it had left an impression so vivid he’d been unable to scrape it from his mind. “It's so weird!” Jester says, heedless of the mental gymnastics he’s got going on. “This card is History and The Dream. How fucking crazy is that? Oh my god.”

Because she looks at him, Molly smiles and nods. He doesn’t blink.

Can’t.

_ Nonagon… _

“A massive creature shatters a city!” she describes, before breaking from her attempt at reverence. “Shut up, that's so fucking perfect. What? Okay. Flip the next card.”

Another precious touch, charged with electricity.

“This card. Ooh, this is your present. The Tyrant. Ooh, two dragons fight each other in a figure eight. The one facing you is red.”

For him at least, it requires no interpretation. The meaning is obvious.

“Flip your last card.” Jester waits, breath bated as he does so. “This is your future.” She gives a gasp. “Wow. This card is so important!” He almost cannot bear to look down, but does so anyways and is greeted with grim prospect.

Finally,  _ finally _ , Molly shivers.

“Facing you,” Jester’s tone is lofty, “is Death. That's not necessarily a bad thing, Lucien, you know?” He does know, of course, but it still feels like he’s been sentenced all the same. “Some people think that Death means a rebirth. Something must end for something new to begin.”

_ Like me _ .

Unbidden, he feels his right hand twitch, twice. Clench. 

“How do you feel?” The innocence with which she asks makes it hurt all the more.

“Thank you. That was… interesting.”

She gathers up the cards, smiling, but Molly cannot stand to be there any longer. Awkwardly, he stands, garnering the instant attention of all in the room, and walks silently, stiffly, back to the iris and bids himself rise to the floor with his room. He needs some time to himself.

Instead of going anywhere in particular though, he feels the need to stay nearby, so sits, with false precariousness, along the edge of the iris, leaving his legs dangling. They huddle down below, and he wonders – if he wanted to, if he tried – if by willing it so, he might be able to hear their conversation. The low rumble of their whispers travel, even if it is indistinguishable. It could be so easy. To listen in, to reap the punishment of this long con. All it would take, he  _ thinks _ , is the desire. There’s a connection between him and the Tomb Takers, one that he’s not sure he’s comfortable acknowledging, and yet, already he’s used it to bring them under his will. Already, he knows that it could be his ticket to freedom.

Yes, two dragons do war within him, a tyrant and a- a –

But no word fills the opposite position.

Swallowing hard, Molly pretends that he can still remember who he has always believed himself to be and tries very hard not to wonder what change it is that Death foretells. Because he’s  _ not _ Lucien.

And if he’s not Lucien, that means that it is  _ Molly _ who has to change.

_ No _ , the little voice within whispers,  _ you already have. _

He stays like that, for a while, but eventually, his grumbling stomach urges him to float back down, and stare, unemotionally at the group, who all look back at him with…varying expressions, none of which are satisfying.

“Now, don’t be pouty. There’s food to be had in this place, and drink? Isn’t there? If someone would be kind enough to remind me the way?”

Somewhat reluctantly, they gather into a unit, his Mighty Nein and… _ his _ Tomb Takers, and make their way to the dining hall. It’s both the same and different from how Molly remembers it. Last time, they’d all already been seated when he arrived. This time, he enters before the rest, Caleb standing aside with an arm offering him the right of way.

He takes the moment to preen, to inhabit that space of power and self and breathes deeply, pausing so that the rest must wait to pass within, and puts his arms out to his sides. “How convenient this is. Nice, warm, cozy space. So good of you to share it. Isn’t that right, girls and boys?”

Just as reluctantly as they had gotten up to join him, do the Tomb Takers grumble their agreement on the matter. With a flourish, Molly seats himself. He doesn’t know if they have usual spots, if he’s coopted one, but it doesn’t really matter that much. First Cree, then the rest, come to sit around him, while the Nein filter over to the table that faces them. Caleb sits dead center, Caduceus and Jester to his either side.

In short order the cats bring them up some bread with soup, meats, and cheeses and various alcohols, and they’ve tucked in for the evening.

Compelled to apologize to the Nein, awkward as the timing is, Molly smiles gregariously, a hunk of bread in one hand, a tankard of warmed mead in the other. “No hard feelings?”

Fjord blinks, then matches his own smile with equal wryness. “Of course not.”

Narrowing her eyes, Veth picks up her knife. A less-than-vaguely threatening gesture. “No, why would there be?”

It’s growing to be a chore, and yet second nature at the same time, to contain the frustration that builds whenever he is in their presence.  _ You don’t know the half of it _ , he thinks while looking at her –  _ really _ looking at her. The real Veth, who is not Nott and whom he can only recognize by her mannerisms.  _ You haven’t the faintest clue. _

“I think,” Fjord begins, dusting crumbs off his hands. “it's just simple miscommunication. We're learning how to communicate, I think.”

"Right, right.” Molly passes it off with the blasé wave of a hand. “Well, since we're all friends around here, who's got a story to tell? It's quite dark out here and enjoyments, entertainment is hard to come by." Anything to stave off the desire to confess before it can all be handled. Anything to keep him from allowing all his hard work to be for naught.

The story Fjord launches into is…wild to say the least. Giant sea leviathans chasing him everywhere there’s ocean. It certainly makes sense of the dreams his former roommate used to have. Briefly, Molly wonders if that yellow eyeball stone thing had any major role in events, before the story comes to an abrupt and rather undetailed end.

Reluctance, it seems, is to be the theme of the night.

Eventually, Fjord picks the thread back up, carefully, tentatively, artfully, like he’s been commissioned to paint a portrait for a king.

“What about you? I mean, you've obviously made incredible progress on your mission, your goals. Is there a terrible immediacy on your part? Any sort of a clock or another interested party you might be trying to, I don't know, arrive before?”

This, at least, he can answer honestly, and takes a small, but almost frighteningly satisfying thrill of vindictiveness at recalling it. "Well, I mean...”  _ Her eyes, the whites gone red with blood. Her scream. Her teeth stained crimson. The voice, thrilled, purring with pleasure, with malice.  _ “There was one I was a bit concerned about but that was taken care of."

Fjord’s smile is…decidedly thin. “Ah, yes.”

"At the moment there's no... rush” he says, choosing his words equally carefully. “Let’s just say a bit of impatience.” He sneers. “It’s cold as tits outside and I hate it here. But what’re you going to do?”

Beau snorts. It’s something, at least.

“I take it you all know about ‘goals’?” The titter a bit, and he lets them, flustered as they are, before taking pity. “"Are you all just wanderers? Or do you have particular things you're trying to accomplish?"  _ Hints, Caleb, give me hints! _ But the wizard says nothing.

Again.

The urge to end dinner before it’s even really begun hits with a vengeance, but Molly shoves a piece of jerky into his mouth, tearing at it roughly with his protracted canines. The tough meat – indistinguishable, something bought at the market in Balenpost – tears easily enough for him and he eyes them up as he chews slowly.

“No,” Veth decides. There’s a certain self-confidence in her that wasn’t there before. A certain level of clarity. Maybe it’s because she’s not drunk. Maybe it’s because she’s not a goblin. Briefly, Molly wonders if he’ll ever know. “We all have our own unique set of goals. Some of them we've made progress on. And some are just sort of wandering around hoping that they'll solve themselves.”

Which one is he? He wonders absently. “Right.”

Caduceus laughs, shrugging. “I'm mostly fine.”

_ Oh, _ Molly thinks.  _ Gotcha.  _ If there was ever a soul a live who knows that ‘fine’ is a great deflector for the truth, it’s Mollymauk Tealeaf. "I think there's a story in you somewhere."

“Well,” their firbolg companion cocks his head, considering. “Probably. I feel like I've been writing my first story for the last while. I don't know know if it's finished yet. I've spent most of my life at home.”

"I got the feeling."

The conversation turns to a corrupted woods, and from there, straight back, as it ever does, to the Somnovem. Straight back to the thing which Molly knows  _ least _ about.

Except that that’s not really true. In his very marrow, like an infection, he can feel the lingering intensity of their gaze on him. Like they’ve been burned onto his retinas, or he into theirs. Like he can be seen by them always, and is always seeing them, everywhere.

If he were to shut his eyes, Molly has no doubt that they’d be right behind his eyelids, waiting.

_ Waiting _ .

“They’re…strange,” he settles on, but it feels wrong. Flashes, like the indecipherable scribblings of a child, scour in black ash across his memory. Enneadic in ordinance, twisting, churning, the guts of a slain raven, dashed on a wooden divining board, practically begging with their very existence to be interpreted, but to no avail. The futility of a blind tasseographer. “No, that’s the wrong word. They’re-The Somnovem are  _ mad _ .”

“Mad like,  _ mad _ ,” Veth makes a monstrous face, “or mad like,  _ crazy _ ?”

“Absolutely batty.” He sighs, falls, descends.  _ Dream within dream. Vision through vision. Supernovae and deadened plane before the spark of life. His own existence, igniting from within the hollow shell of a vacated form. _ Another sigh. The world flies up to meet him, and he resurfaces, but the imagined ichor of that endless dark still fills his lungs. “Batty,” he repeats himself. “Dream and imagination. Unstoppable force driven by instinct." Whose words speak with his mouth? They fly forth, unbidden. "But those with imagination, the things  _ I  _ could imagine for them.”  _ So many things. What is it you want? What can you dream? _

_ Idon’tknowIdon’tknowIdon’tknowshutupshutup _

“How about you?"

_ Stopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopsto- _

“Is that what you think you're bringing to it? Focus?”

Caduceus’ question breaks the spell and Molly feels it submerge again, retreating.

Waiting. Always waiting.

_ And watching. _

He almost misses it, the subtle exchange of glances between Caleb and Caduceus as the latter repeats his question.

“Maybe.” The word grinds out from between his lips, like sad. “What do you imagine, if you’ve got the capacity? Goals, future desires, the things you want to see. The changes you want to bring."

_ Who have you become, _ Molly cannot help but wonder,  _ without me? _

“Well, there's been a lot of strife between the two nations on the continent.” Veth says between bites of cheese. They’re rather more delicate than he recalls. Who are they indeed! “We've definitely tried to help them heal and bring peace to the world. That would be a nice direction to focus the energy of your wise friends, I guess?”

"That's a very noble cause." Briefly, Molly recalls the war, Zadash, the explosion at that tower, the drow in the sewers. And here they are, choosing against their own self interests to help end the strife. He finds himself, genuinely, pleasantly surprised.

Wonders how they got there. What path did they meander, and how close – how  _ often  _ – had it nearly bisected his own.

What he would have done if it did.

His thoughts darken, begin to spiral again, until Jester, unassuming and innocent sounding as ever, very decidedly states; “I would like to domesticate unicorns.”

The levity banishes the dark and Molly laughs, unable and unwilling not to. It’s their gift, truly, that these people, so disparate in their origins, have so thoroughly been able to bid to one another; even in his absence, Yasha remained with them, or they with her, and for that small grace, he’s grateful, more grateful for the fact that she’s not alone than he is of their being there.

For while they may not yet know, they will.

_ And when they do, they’ll be there for you, no matter what. Unicorn domestication and all _ .  _ I choose them. I  _ choose _ them. Every time. _

It strikes him again in that moment, as needs must at least once a day in her presence, how desperately he longs for Yasha’s arms to come about him; any of them, really, would suffice for a hug, but Yasha is frankly top of the list, especially since he can recall their comfort with practiced ease.

In lieu of that, Molly turns his attention to her instead.

“What about you, then?”

“Me?” she stares back at him, bewildered. Perturbed. Maybe one more than the other, but he cannot identify which is the prime.

"What depths of your imagination?"

Someday – soon maybe – he’ll be cradled against her strong warmth, and he’ll ask her  _ how are you, love? _ And she’ll not question that he cares.

Someday.

But not soon enough.

“I think I-“ she stumbles. Starts again. “I have quite an imagination, but... I don't fully know what my goals are yet.”

_ Me. Please be me. _

Why Molly bothers asking questions he knows won’t provide him with satisfactory answers is beyond him. A form of madness in its own right, repeating the already attempted. If they’re not careful, it will be permanent, he thinks. A dark thought, but a warning. A reminder. A caution.

"That's okay." It’s all he can think to say. So insufficient to plumb the depths of his real curiosity. Apparently, though, he has Veth to do that for him.

“Would you want to discover more about your lost time?” It’s asked politely, almost delicately, like she’s afraid Yasha will break. Eager, but with a schooled expression, Molly awaits her answer. She’d told him, of course, so long ago now, the history she couldn’t remember. How rapidly they’d forged their bond on that shared experience, their shared emotions regarding that time.

“Uh... yes and no, I— I forget that you don't know.” The look she gives him, imploring, yearning, agonized, is somehow not worse than the resigned sigh. “A lot about me already. But, um... there's a period of time that I lost, and I don't know how long it was. And I don't fully know what I did. But I know, um... it probably wasn't all good.”

_ None of that matters. You’re you  _ now _ and you’re going to continue to be you! _

He’d told her as much more than once.

Maybe it was wishful thinking on his part, that such could be true. He’s a lost cause, but she doesn’t have to be. And as long as he draws breath, Molly knows that he’ll have Yasha and her happiness always at the forefront of his mind, no matter how far he falls beneath the black maze of inherited madness, boiling up from beneath him. Seeping in like refuse behind a stopped up plug.

Frowning, suddenly fearful, he falls back to his old ways, his once tried and true maxims. "Maybe it's best left in the past." A false comfort for a person happiest to live in the sewage of his own denial. _ Look where it’s got you now. _ Still, it clings, or rather, he clings to it. He can’t help it, not matter how hard he tries.

“Sometimes I think that.”

His heart blossoms. She might as well have said ‘sometimes, I think of you’.

Bolstered, Molly smiles. Genuinely smiles. The first in well…a day actually. But the second in  _ ages _ . "Well, maybe you're just not ripe yet. Maybe a goal will find its way to you in time. There's no rush."

“Yeah.”

He turns back to Fjord, content to wring a little more information out of him, before setting his sights on Beau. The toughest nut of the bunch to crack, but, he’s often felt, the most delicate underneath. Save maybe Caleb. “All right. What about you?" In some ways, he feels he barely knows her. But no, he knows enough.

He  _ died _ for her, after all.

“What are my goals or do I have an imagination?” she asks, terse as ever. “You've asked a few questions.”

Archly, he raises a fine brow. "Goals take imagination."

“Yes, they do.”

"So, what do you imagine your goals to be?"

Something flickers in her eyes that looks like honesty. Like fear. Like hope.

The three do often seem to coincide.

“It's interesting. Kind of at a point where I've achieved a lot of my larger goals. Now I'm just following open doors. This being the latest. I think this will inform my future goals pretty heavily.”

Beside him, Molly feels more than sees Cree tense, but he relaxes, a subtle countermand, and she follows suit.

"Fair enough.” Full, Molly leans back on the chair, folding his hands behind his head and turns to that still most intriguing individual. “You said you're set in your story."

Soft, thulian eyes fall on him with an acute determination to match their kind, gentle caress. “Well,” Caduceus says. “You asked what I wanted and I think I figured it out. I want to help a heart and a mind, and save a soul.” And, oh,  _ he doesn’t hold anything back at all, does he? _ Direct and to the point, Caduceus levels with Molly. “This one.”

"Well.” He doesn’t quite know what to say. And even if he did, he can’t, not with the Tomb Takers there. “There's a lot in the world... not yet discovered. And a lot of possibility... yet to be harnessed. How about you?"

Twice, in rapid succession, Caleb blinks. “We two have already talked. You and I, about what you want, potentially, from me, and I from you. We need not rehash it now.” 

“No.” There’ll be plenty of time later for the two of them to talk. “But – and I’m not wrong – you’re curious. And we’re more alike than you think.”

“Perhaps. Ja. Perhaps.”

Once more, Caduceus butts in, eyes narrowed. “And where does your imagination lie, then?”

“That’s me for me to know, and you to find out.” _When I know, that is._ _Not that I ever want—_

But he does want. He knows he does.

The humming in his veins won’t let him forget it.

“Do the Somnovem make you nervous?” Jester. Jester who seems so innocent, asks the most piercing question.

“At first. Be foolish not to.” Truth and lies, truth and lies, Molly reminds himself. They go together well, in the right dosage. Just enough of each to be convincing. “But I've met them. Truly met them. Now things are…different.”

Now, he can’t seem to actually feel nervous at all. The thought alone should make him nervous, but that leads into a perpetual feedback loop and there are far more significant things to consider than those unlikely to change in the near future.

“Do you think you can control them?” Jester presses onwards.

The honest answer here is a resounding ‘fuck no’. Molly chuckles. No need to lie. "I don't think I can control them, but I have my imagination and that’s something.” 

“You want to be a part of them.” Beau stabs a piece of jerky with a knife and brings it to her lips.

“All of us bring our cards to the table.”

She glowers at his non-response. “You said that they were mad. Do you consider yourself to be mad?”

Whatever last vestige of rational emotion about the whole situation he still has shudders in the affirmative. Piece by piece, he’s losing himself, and already he’s halfway too disconsolate to care. “We’re all a little bit mad just to be here.” He gestures around them generally. “All vision takes madness.”

“What could they possibly want?” Caduceus wonders aloud, almost half to himself to Molly’s best judgement. “Can't even imagine.”

_ Neither can I, friend. _ "Well, continue along with us. Maybe you could ask them yourself." Frankly, he hopes not. Pushing his plate aside, picked at a bit, half eaten, he finishes off the mead. When that’s gone too, he sets it down. They’re all watching him hawklike, as though the slightest of movements might key them in to what’s really going on in his head.

_ Soon. Soon. I hope. _

But he’s at the end of his rope already, and barely hanging on. 

“Well,” he exhales firmly. “This has been a fine bit of conversation. But every one of you look a bit knackered. I appreciate the comfort. Thanks much for the meal and the kind offering of your  _ home. _ Rest well. We'll be up early in the morning. A lot of traveling to do.” He fixes Caleb with a look. “Dream well."

And before anyone can get a word in edgewise, he hops to his feet and heads for the doors.

He’s waited long enough to have this conversation. No longer.

No knock comes at his door, even as the night wears on. Frustrated, Molly is just about to walk out the door again himself when, curiously, he hears a sound from his bedroom. Flying through the curtained doorways, he makes his way to the back of his chambers.

There Caleb stands, shifting his weight, wan and exhausted, closing an obscured door in the wall behind him. It’s papered over identical to the wall and almost invisible entirely when it shuts.

“I am sorry for making you wait. I had to be sure everyone was asleep. And I apologize for surprising you like this. I thought it would be better if there was no chance of my being seen coming here.” There’s something imploring in the explanation that avoids an outright request for clemency, but when - ever - in Molly’s acquaintance with Caleb has he ever believed he could be forgiven for anything?

Never. The answer is never.

“It’s alright. Just glad you made it at all.” Days Molly has waited to get Caleb alone, to be able to discuss everything that has happened in the interim. Now that it’s happened, he feels stiff. Awkward. Before, he’d been over emotional, and now, aside from the still biting keen of frustration, he’s emotionless. “Your tall friend joining us then?”

“Caduceus? Ja, I have made him aware of our plans. I will have Bartosz summon him to enter the same why I did when we are ready.”

Would that Molly could, he’d have blinked at the phrase. “What do you mean?”

Caleb rubs his hands together, a little awkwardly, like he’s poised to ignite a flame in his hands. “You do not know him. I had thought, perhaps you would be more comfortable if it was…just us. At first. I-I wanted to-“ He cuts himself off, bites his lip casually. It takes Molly a moment to recognize the emotion presented as distress. “I am worried about you, Mollymauk.”

Brow furrowing, he looks Caleb over. He’s fidgety, feet and hands shifting. Not once does he make eye contact.

“You don’t trust me.” Molly feels it, that realization, like a dagger in the gut. The most unfortunate part is that he can’t blame Caleb, not in light of the past week. “Good.” The word bites through the air. Caleb flinches. “You shouldn’t. And if you’re not afraid, you ought to be. Because I’m not. Can’t think of anything more worth being afraid of than that.”

“It is not  _ you _ I do not trust. And worry is not fear, Molly. I am…I am your  _ friend _ . I care about you.”

“Do you?”

“Ja. I do.”

Molly laughs. It’s not the carefree, luminous sound from when Beau and Jester made the cracks about his dick. In reality, it oughtn’t to be called a laugh at all. Whatever it is is much too raw for that moniker. Scraped thin, like the rest of him, it pushes itself abrasively out of his mouth. The irony is too much.

Fragile, delicate Caleb. Caleb in front of whom Molly had stood, ready to defend. Caleb who wilted at the first indication of attention. Caleb, grimy and ragged and pale, beaten, broken, silently suffering, now stands before him unwaveringly solid. A pillar of defiance, Molly sees clearly now, that they’ve gone and switched.

It is Molly whose soul now shudders in the face of the abyss, and it is Caleb who stands between him and that impending fate.

“I never wanted to be here.” Barely a whisper, the words come unbidden. He sinks down, onto the stool at his armoire. “To become this.”

In this space, conjured and arcane as it is, there are no subtle sounds. No drafts to whistle through doors, no creaking of boards as someone walks around on the floor above him. No soft undertones of conversation that filter through thin walls.

Nothing.

Just silence and the breaths that they two take too softly to be really properly heard.

“After…” Caleb starts, shattering the quiet abruptly; it hangs in the air between them though he doesn’t say anything more. Heavy. Burdened with the weight of intention. Of history.

_ After _ . They both know what Caleb means, of course. There’s no need to finish the sentence, even though Molly’s brain does it for him automatically.  _ I died. After I died. _

In the distance, just past Caleb’s shoulder, on the deep, rich teal of the wall, the tower room fades away. The snow is thin, little more than frost at points. Too soon to be properly called wintery, the air nips, bitter, but not numbingly so. White flakes swirl softly through the navy curtain of the sky, bereft of stars, blanketed by black and greying clouds. The grotesque grin splits Lorenzo’s visage. It’s splattered over with red, Molly’s own blood, singing with sweet and familiar resonance.

It feels so far away now, the blade that cracked open his sternum, left him bathing in his own, warm cruor.

Like a dream.

The hesitation of a breath rips him from the recollection, but Molly keeps staring at the spot, like he could burn a hole there, ashy dark, which just his gaze.

“After,” Caleb starts again. (And where has he been visiting in those past moments? The same brutal scene?) “Whenever I felt like I was close to forgetting you, I would spend some free moments recalling everything there was to remember. Your words, your beliefs. Those false stories you had told, different every time. Your jokes. Your laugh. The minutiae of your coat. The gait with which you walked. The arch of your horns. The crookedness of your smile when you were about to do something particularly untoward. Your tattoos – all that I had seen, at least – and the scars that bisect them. Every one, no matter how faint. Your frown, rare as it was. The way your pupils are almost the same colour as your irises. At first, I did not know they were there at all. Your freckles, too. Did you know you have them? Everything,” Caleb quickly continues, not pausing for breath. “Everything right down to your dark, purple eyelashes.”

Molly almost refutes him, except that, quite suddenly, he realizes he doesn’t actually know the colour of his eyelashes. He never looked closely enough to tell if they were variegated from black or not. When did Caleb get such a close look, he wonders. After he lay there, unmoving, unbreathing? Or in the sewers, when they’d had their little…conversation.

Really, it doesn’t matter. He should be focusing on the fact that Caleb had bothered to take such pains at all.

But Caleb keeps going.

“I have memorized you, Mollymauk. So, really, you have never been forgotten.” Finally, he inhales a deep breath. “Look at me.” The order rings more loudly than any words yet passed between them. “Look at me, Mollymauk.”

Somewhat reluctantly, Molly lets his gaze leave its futile work on the wall in favour of Caleb, whose features bear an almost ardent cast, bright blue eyes gleaming with fervor.

“I will  _ never _ let it happen. As long as I still draw breath, you will be remembered. Never doubt that. Never. Even if you forget yourself, I will not. I promise you, I will not.”

Awe overcomes him, as he stares up at Caleb. At least, in memories, he’ll never be forgotten. Because he already hardly recognizes himself.

_ Once, _ he thinks, fondly, dolorously, as he imprints this version of Caleb into his own, albeit far less reliable, memory.  _ Once, I could have loved you _ .

Instead, with every passing minute, Molly grows more and more convinced that as soon as Caleb and Caduceus are back to sleep in their beds, he should simply leave the tower. Descend into the empty tundra and lose himself like just another casualty of the fall of the ancient civilization. They’d be safer, if he did.

The whole world would be.

A warm hand clasps his shoulder firmly, startling him from his musing. When Caleb had moved, Molly cannot say, but he’s there, kneeling now before him. Steady and sure, Molly can feel the pulse of Caleb’s hand through the fabric of his shirt.

Whisper soft, he speaks. “I don’t know who I am anymore, Caleb. I don’t know if I’m me. I don’t know if I’ve ever really been  _ me _ .” Even as he hears the words, Molly doesn’t recognize the sound of his own voice, flat and emotionless. Not resigned, though, and with no real terror behind it. “Caleb, the things that have happened to me since last we spoke… The things I didn’t tell you then…”

“Then tell us now,” Caleb pleads. “Caduceus and myself. We are here for you, Molly. All of us, even though they believe they cannot say it. We will figure this out. We will stop this from happening. And you will be free.”

There are more types of freedom, Molly knows, than the kind which Caleb alludes to. But he allows his friend the option to believe that it is possible. Someone has to, since Molly’s rapidly losing the ability to do so for himself.

“I will send Bartosz for Caduceus. That way, you do not have to do this more than once.”

There’s little more Molly can do than nod. Even before he can, Caleb has already moved away to the more exterior chambers where the little red velvet pull is installed, leaving Molly to muse alone on the options laid before him. Dark, roiling thoughts, for which he hopes never to give voice.

When Caleb returns, he sits quietly on the chest at the end of the bed, neither speaking until the door in the wall creaks once more, but a scant few minutes later, and Caduceus Clay ducks his towering head out from under the frame.

“The cat said I should come in.”

Humorlessly, Molly laughs. “You are certainly unique, aren’t you, Mister Clay.”

Caduceus shrugs. “I suppose so. But not as unique as you. Nice to make your acquaintance, finally…”

“Mollymauk. Molly to my friends.”

He remembers, dispassionately, the last time he said that phrase. With far more aplomb then, than now. So far, he is from himself, that the introduction feels like a lie.

“Well, I’d be honoured if you consider me your friend. I know we don’t really know one another, but Caleb and the rest care a lot about you.” The giant of a man casts a frown in Caleb’s direction, making no attempt to disguise it. “You’ve made ripples in a still pond, Mister Molly. That quite a feat.”

“Not sure I take your meaning, friend.”

As if bemused, the frown turns to a small smile. “Well, you see, compared to you, the world for them is an afterthought. At any rate-“ he moves about the space, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that he’s just dropped an earth shattering revelation down like a sheet of glass on flagged stone. Little by little he begins to set up some sort of ritual; incense sparks and smokes in delicate trills far more unassuming than the potent aroma that hangs in the air, seeping into the fabrics that adorn the space.

“While I get settled, why don’t you tell Caleb and I what you know?”

Warily, Molly tracks the cleric’s movements as he goes about his routine. “It needs me. Wants me to bring it back. But I guess you probably already know that. I don’t sleep. At all. Or shut my eyes. I have waking dreams, visions from the…  _ Somnovem. _ I used to be afraid. I’m not anymore. I should be, but I’m not. I think that they…stole it from me. My fear. Sometimes…”

Caleb looks up at him, nervous. “What? What is it?”

“Sometimes, I think thoughts that aren’t mine, or say things I don’t mean to. It’s me and I’m saying them and thinking them, but it’s…” He flounders. “It’s not.”

Though Caleb tenses, Caduceus doesn’t seem at all perturbed, simply nodding and continuing about his work.

“Anything else?”

“I have…new powers.” He shifts, for the first time feeling genuinely uncomfortable. The eye on his neck slides oil slick beneath his skin, fixing its surreptitious stare on Caleb. Though, not furtive enough, it seems, because Caleb’s staring right into it. He had seen then, at some point. Something rather like guilt settles in Molly’s stomach as he considers what Caleb will think when he tells them of the other ability. The ability that allows him to overrule the Tomb Takers willpower whenever he has the slightest of inclinations. “Or old ones. I’m not sure. You’ve seen two of them.”

“Ja,” Caleb lifts a finger, tracing the red glowing mark on Molly’s neck; reflexively, he shudders. “I had wondered.”

“It just happens. They’re not spells. I just…want something and it happens. When you all tried to fly away-“ His cheeks grow hot at the memory. “I didn’t want you to leave. I just  _ thought it _ .  _ Wished it _ and it happened.”

“And the third?” Caduceus asks, now seated comfortably in a circle of crystals, incense and herbs. When Molly fails to reply, they both look up at him, Caleb sharply, Caduceus knowingly, gaze laced with sympathy that Molly doesn’t want and hasn’t asked for. “You’re ashamed of it,” Caduceus says, almost marveling. “Aren’t you?”

He flushes again, and looks away. That doesn’t prevent him from seeing them still, with that third sense.

“I don’t like it.”

“You must tell us, Molly.” Again, Caleb reaches for him. “We will not judge you.”

He doesn’t need them to. Molly does a good enough job of it on his own. “It’s wrong.” Afterwards, he’d felt dirty, forcing them to get moving the way he did. “Sick.”

But they wait, with endless patience and eventually, he gives in to it.

“Once, I wanted the Tomb Takers to do something. And they did it.”

Caleb blinks. “Perhaps, with a little more detail?”

“I can control them all. At once.” Absently, he picks up a file from the armoire, fiddling with it distractedly. “They moved in unison with me. Spoke in unison with me. What I did, they did. And they didn’t have a choice.” When he drops the little metal tool, it clatters far too loudly against the wood. “I had to have wanted it, or it wouldn’t have happened. I wanted it, and I used it to my benefit, and I could, right now, just as easily. I could round them all up and tell them all to walk outside with me and they would. They’d stand there in the cold all night long.”

The truth is, actually, that he doesn’t really know the extent to which he can exert his control over them, but it doesn’t matter where the limit is. The fact that it’s possible at all is enough to condemn him.

“Well, Mister Mollymauk,” Caduceus says, his voice even and soothing. “Seems to me that someone who wanted to abuse that power wouldn’t be sickened by it. Now,” he abruptly shifts the conversation. “I’m going to ask my goddess some questions. See if we can’t figure out where to go from here.”

He whirls, suddenly livid. “What? No reprimand? I  _ chose _ to use it against them. I saw what I was doing and I kept doing it, and all you’ve got for me is ‘you’re self-aware, so it’s okay’?” Cruel, cold edges cut with his dour laugh. “How  _ permissive _ of you.”

Caleb takes a step back, but Caduceus only blinks, looking him rather too thoroughly over for Molly’s liking. “Just because you think you deserve to be punished, doesn’t mean it's true. I’m sure Caleb could tell you a thing or two about that. Feel free to talk while I do this. I won’t hear you.” Without waiting for Molly to come up with a retort, Caduceus shuts his eyes, breathes in deep and the candles flare around him as he descends into the trance.

“You are awfully set on punishing yourself,” says Caleb after a beat. “Caduceus is not wrong. I know a thing or two about that, as I’m sure you gathered long ago. And I can tell you, this-” Abruptly, he grabs Molly’s hand, running his thumb over the eye on Molly’s palm. “-this is not your fault. There was a time you knew that.”

“No.” Molly pulls his hand from Caleb’s, and turns away. “There was a time I was very good at convincing myself it was true. There’s a big difference.”

Surprisingly strong fingers find his shoulder, pulling him back unceremoniously. “Belief is  _ everything _ , Mollymauk. Have you not proved it so, with your description of these abilities?” Earnestness plays loosely on Caleb’s features. “Once, you believed you were  _ you _ and no one else. Harness that power. If the Somnovem are the purveyors of dreams, why not dream to your advantage?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It never is.” Caleb’s grip softens, goes almost tender. “And that is what makes it worth fighting for.  _ You _ are worth fighting for, Mollymauk. We choose you. But that is not enough.  _ You _ must choose you, too.”

He wants –  _ wants, desperately _ – to shut his eyes, tries to channel that same energy as before, when he’d activated the long dormant abilities.

Nothing happens. Instead, he hangs his head.

A tender touch lifts his chin. “You are strong, Mollymauk. But no one can last alone forever. We will see what Caduceus is able to glean and then, we three will make a plan. Maybe it is time to let the others in on the secret-“

“No.” Vehemently, Molly shakes his head. “Not yet. It wouldn’t be safe. If they knew, I don’t think I could keep from breaking character. It’s hard enough as it is, sometimes.”

“I understand. But should you change your mind…”

“I won’t.”

Caleb makes a face as his rapid response. “But in the event that you do, you know we are not as easily overpowered as we were on the…on the Glory Run Road. If needed to, we could take the Tomb Takers. We would do, for you.” He pauses and a slight blush rises on his pale cheeks. “There is little we would not do in your name, Molly,” adds Caleb softly. “‘Leave everywhere better than you found it.’ “

Startled, Molly takes a step back, but before he can ask the question that’s building within him, Caduceus comes out of the trance with a sharp inhale.

“I have some answers.” He fixes them both with a grave stare. “It’s a start. Not much of one, but the best we’ll get.” 

“And we can make a plan, Molly.” That reassuring hand on his shoulder squeezes gently. “We will figure this out. Caduceus, what did you learn?”

Just as methodically and practiced as before, Caduceus goes about packing up his ritual into his satchel. “I asked the Wildmother if the Somnovem need  _ Lucien _ for the ritual. Didn’t get much confirmation either way on that one, which says to me that it’s not so much about your, uh, personality. Second question was about if it would pick someone else if you abandoned it. The answer wasn’t quite as wishy washy, but it wasn’t an affirmative either. Do you know how you—he—how those eyes came to be on your skin?” 

“Not a damn clue, friend.” He’s wondered, of course, considered. Tattoos, he’d always assumed, back at the beginning. No more. He’s wondered about the rest, too. About if he is as special as the Tomb Takers kept indicating. If there’s something about his form that transcends the soul within it. But no answers aren’t bad either - Molly’s not sure he could keep up the charade if the status quo was shaken up too much. 

Frowning, Caleb sits back down on the chest at the end of the bed. “And there is nothing you can think of that might have been the trigger?”

“Beats me silly. Could ask Cree,” he suggests, before wincing at his own idea. “But I’m not sure she’d answer, and even if she did, I’m not sure how much she’s willing to trust me now that you’re all around. You make her...anxious.” 

Just as surely and steadily as it had all been brought out the accoutrement of Caduceus’ ritual was gone, as though it had never happened in the first place. How easily the evidence of existence was wiped from the world! Molly mused, removedly. 

“And the third question?” 

“If the Tomb Takers suspect you, funny enough. Lucien’s friend, Cree - she cares about you-him. A lot. She worried, but not about you being, well,  _ you _ . The Wildmother, when I talk to her, Mister Mollymauk, it’s more like she answers with a-a feeling, you know? And not words. I think, if you talk to Cree, ask her just the right questions, say just the right things. Get her...comfortable. I think you could get her to help, even if she doesn’t know it.” 

Molly blanches. It’s confirmation, of course, of what he already knows. That they love  _ him _ . That he’s hurting them by virtue of pretending. And maybe he shouldn’t care that he’s lied, taken advantage, impersonated someone who is deeply loved, except that he can’t help reversing it. How would the Nein feel, to learn that he’d done the same to them? 

Guilt roils in his gut just the same. 

“I can’t play her.” The words are out before he’s thought them through. 

Sad eyes catch him with tender apology, a courtesy he neither deserves, nor wants. “You already are, Molly,” Caleb replies. There’s brutality in that simple acknowledgement. It leaves him staggering back down to his seat, gaze distant once more, finding the wall where he swears there is a spot abraded away from the effort of his incendiary stare. 

He wants to be left alone, and paradoxically, never wants them to leave, but above all he doesn’t want to have to look at them, to acknowledge their pitying stares. When the conversation kicks off without him, he doesn’t push back. 

“Tomorrow, we will talk more with the Nein, and between the two of us, Caduceus, I think we can influence them away from leaving this place with the threshold crest, and also to keep us from involving Essek. He is busy and this is…” A hitch catches at Caleb’s breath, breaking the fluid stride of his words. “Personal. Molly.” 

“Hm?” Dazed, he looks up and over Caleb’s shoulder. Like the long ago early days of the carnival, he artfully redirects his gaze. Maybe Caleb won’t notice. Maybe he’ll be kind enough not to ask.

“Tomorrow, can you make a show of debating about sharing the book with us? I will bring it up in conversation again, and then, once you’ve deliberated, you can share it with Beau and I, that we might be able to decipher it. Maybe within there are clues to the questions for which only Lucien would otherwise have answers?” 

He only nods. 

“Good. Then, it is settled. And we can maybe call again on your goddess tomorrow with a different set of questions. Or Jester on the Traveler.” In his field of vision, Molly notices Caleb waver, shifting in place like a repeated second in time. “We are the Mighty Nein, Mollymauk. We’re strong together. Now that we have you back, we can only be stronger yet. We will figure this out.” 

“Mhm.” 

“We will.” There’s true conviction in his tone, in the set of his jaw, the pulse of the artery in his neck. It’s beautiful, truly stunning to witness. Caleb Widogast, confident. Caleb Widogast, a believer. Maybe Molly was right to worry; too much is different about them now. Time has made them strangers. Unrecognizable. Incompatible. For, once, long ago, Molly was believer enough to convince himself of his own bullshit on even some of his worst days. A true miracle. The traditional flow of adrenaline that accompanies trepidation does not flood his brain when he considers, more seriously than ever, that maybe he hasn’t really been Mollymauk since he woke all those months ago from his second grave. 

Whatever made him who he was, maybe it’s still buried there, beneath the earth, seeded into the ground, waiting for someone worthy of it. 

Whoever that is, he’s not sure he’s the one who deserves that name.  _ Mollymauk _ . 

_ But Caleb believes you matter. That you are Molly. That you matter. Caleb believes. Maybe he can believe enough for both of us. If Caleb can believe... _

“We made Nott into Veth,” Caleb continues, avidly. “We killed a demi-god and have kept another two from resurfacing from their prisons. We ended a  _ war _ . With you among us again, there is nothing I do not believe we can accomplish.”

Finally, Molly meets Caleb’s eyes. “Then your belief is my salvation, Caleb. My fate is in your hands.” 

Caleb’s blue eyes shine, briefly, of amber. “A charge I will not take lightly. I promise you this. Come what may, I swear to you, you will feel Yasha’s embrace before this is over. I swear it.” 

A flame, distant, but familiar, flickers in Molly’s heart. A barely there warmth, it’s made of memories. Of Yasha’s hugs, of Caleb’s rare (and thus precious) smile. Beau’s playful shoulder punches. Fjord’s fluster and bluster. Jester’s mischievous grins. Veth’s over excitement. Camaraderie. Unconditional, though tentative, but  _ real _ . 

_ Real like I’m real. Real like  _ Molly _ is real. Real like I’m really Molly.  _

If hope is a contagion, then Molly wants to be infected thoroughly by the brightly burning righteousness of Caleb’s belief that he can yet be delivered from the abyss. 

If anyone can save him now, he  _ believes _ that the Mighty Nein can. 


	4. 4 | Cold Snap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi.  
> I'm not sorry. 
> 
> Thanks Eim for the Irish for Sylvan!  
> Thanks to Meridas for the beta.  
> Thanks to DottoraQN for help with formatting
> 
> As ever, Effy, enjoy.

4 | Cold Snap

Once, when Caleb was young, Frumpkin had brought him a rabbit. Normally, this wasn’t cause for fretting. Hare always made for good stew and anything his father did not have to hunt was welcome. It was one reason Caleb had been allowed to keep his sweet little cat. She kept the vermin away, and brought the occasional dinner supplement along. 

But the time he recalls now is not like that. 

It was the height of spring, the first warm days under the sun where frost no more marred the ground, but dew instead, glittering the way he could only ever have dreamed diamond did. He was...eight? Maybe? Nine? Somewhere in that age range. Still untainted by the desperation of poverty, still innocent to the absence of his father, to the cruelty of the world. Like most mornings, he was woken at the break of day by her soft, gentle pawing at his face. 

The young boy that was Bren had opened his eyes to a new baby bunny, twitching and jerking and bleeding, held firmly between iron jaws and razor teeth. It’s head was almost the size of its body, it was so new, and where normally it would have been screaming, the particular placement of Frumpkin’s hold on it was steadily cutting off its breath. 

Impassive, Bren’s beloved cat had sat there on his chest, primly as ever, holding the pathetically wriggling thing as it entered its final spasms. Beady, black eyes, bright with fear, stared the boy down, as if begging to be saved. And when its little legs ceased to twitch, she’d laid it’s little weeping corpse over his breast, silken and warm and dead. 

In the minutes it had taken for the thing to die, he’d done nothing but lay there, helpless, and watch it happen. He could have made to save the bunny; Frumpkin loved him above all else and would never have put up a fight. But instead he’d done nothing. And the inevitable outcome of nothing had come to pass. 

As Caleb stands in the hidden doorway of Molly’s tower room, he cannot help but wonder if this moment is one in the same. 

Though Molly has the words to ask for help outright, unlike the rabbit, Caleb still cannot help but feel that he isn’t doing enough. That there can never  _ be _ enough that can be done. 

Because like that rabbit, he watched Molly’s shaky last breaths wrest from the fissure of his ruined chest. 

And now, second chance in hand, unlooked for, he’s still watching the monster that grips his friend clamp its teeth down ever more tightly. 

It is with reluctance that he leaves Molly alone in the bedroom - never had Molly liked to be alone. Just another of the things about him that Caleb had memorized in the past year. A whole year without Molly, though his absence had been as keenly felt as his presence. He was in every word they didn’t say, in every choice they’d made on the back of that simple charge - to make things better where they could, instead of simply watching on. He’d been in the desolation of their Xhorhaus - the empty house, the MT House - for how could it be filled without him? He’d been in the decision to stay. To open up. To choose one another. 

Because within only a month of knowing them all, Molly had chosen them, veritable strangers, over his own life. 

Molly had been selfless, in the end. And still is, sheltering his friends as he has been, even at his own expense. 

Their earlier conversations still haunt Caleb. Shuffled together in Yasha’s room they’d hashed out everything they knew - thought they knew - about the person they wish is their friend. 

Towards the wind down of the evening, before they’d taken to their own chambers, when Caleb had been thinking, tormentedly, about the truth, hiding just the room over, waiting for him to arrive, Yasha had ever so softly admitted the truth. 

_ “I feel like we can save him.” _

Halfway through the door, hand on the jamb, Caleb pauses in the face of the dark passageway and turns. 

There, bathed in the chiaroscuro of flickering candlelight, sits Mollymauk, eternally open eyes fixed on Caleb’s own retreating back. 

“What is it?” he asks, almost toneless. It’s unnerving how different Molly has become after a week of dreams, a week of close and terrible influence by the entity which haunts him. Days of sleeplessness and isolation. 

“I can stay. With you here.” Stilted and more uncomfortable than he’s been in a while, Caleb swallows hard. “If you want. I know you do not like to be alone. And if I were you, I do not think I would wish it either. There is no shame in it.”

Unblinkingly, Molly stares at him, almost like he can hardly believe what’s before him. False cheer places across his face. “Who are you and what have you done with my Caleb?” 

The smile that wearily finds its home on Caleb’s features is not a happy one. “I am who I am now because your sacrifice meant that I could live, and grow, and flourish. And for that I will always be grateful. More so, I think, than you will ever understand. Allow me a chance to return the favour.”

Subtly, Molly’s lips twitch. “You’d do that?”

“It is no hardship.” Once, he’d have been uncomfortable in such close quarters with someone like Molly. But that time is long past. No self-consciousness follows him as he steps back into the room, pulling the secret entrance shut behind him. “I am only sorry that I am not Yasha, for you know you would prefer her.”

At that, Molly does break into a smile. “You presume much, don’t you? Well, at any rate, I promise to be a better roommate to you tonight than I ever was to Fjord. Think he’ll forgive me?”

There’s something in the question that belies more than what is said, and Caleb gravely nods.

“I think there is nothing that we could not be prevailed upon to forgive. Except perhaps Beauregard and Veth, though for different reasons, and I do not think you have to worry about them.”

“No. S’long as you show up tomorrow in one piece, I figure I’m probably in the free and clear.”

Involuntarily, Caleb blushes. He doesn’t bother to turn his head away, even if Molly couldn’t see everything, the simple act of hiding his face would be enough to indicate that there is something to hide. Instead, he blurts the first thing to come to mind. “Now who is too presumptuous?”

But it’s worth the salacious insinuation. Every terrible racket that is Molly’s laugh has become a priceless commodity. With impunity, Caleb hoards them to his memory. It is funny, the things one finds precious once they’ve been lost.

Mutti’s yelling had never been nice, but there are days where Caleb would give anything just to hear her scold him once more.

He won’t let any opportunity to hear Molly laugh go to waste.

“Thank you, Caleb. For everything.”

Perhaps, just perhaps, the grip of the Somnovem loosens a bit. If Caleb peers hard, he thinks he can see it retreating. A hard edge casts within his friend, one which he has not seen in over a year. Unflinching determination.

At least, when Molly sets his mind to something, he can be prevailed upon to stick with it to the end.

In the morning, when they all sit uncomfortably at their tables again, Molly (for he  _ is _ Molly. Last night reinforced it more for Caleb than ever. They’d talked quite late, reminiscing fondly, Molly insisting on hearing of their travels, making commentary all throughout until Caleb was too tired to keep his eyes open any longer.) waves his spoon through the air with careless grace.

“Before we finish breakfast, since we had a bit of a conversation the other day, sure, I'd be curious.” From out of the folds of his coat, he pulls an old leather binder. Instinct alone would have told Caleb that this is the book, would that he didn’t already know, at least. "I assume someone wants to give it a shot?"

“Absolutely.” Caleb jumps on the opportunity, even as Beau reaches out with determination. “Come here, Beauregard. We will look together.” With a meaningful nod of the head in Molly’s direction, Caleb stands and reaches across the table to take the folio from Molly’s outstretched hand.

To either side of them, the Nein clear the table, silent and anticipatory. Taking a deep breath, Caleb lays out that coveted text before casting Fortune’s Favour upon himself, and then, upon opening it, Comprehend Languages, because it’s entirely unknown to him. Beauregard, for her part, seems undaunted, and together they begin to peruse the journal.

Even with the aid of the spells, it takes Caleb a minute to parse the cipher, but once he has it, he trips through the content of the pages, which feels all too familiar. The simple diary of an explorer. Sketches of architecture line the margins, snippets of commentary about the weather, various geographic landmarks, mild academic speculation,and more gripes about the weather, the unpredictability of magic, the anomalies interspersed throughout. The sketches grow more accurate and defined, the text speaking of frozen bodies, casualties of the End.

And then, there’s the text that’s mentioned.

_ The philosophers abandoned us. The cursed, plotting dreamers took their whole Ward with them. Curse them. May they rot in –  _ And there it ended.

Further pages left the knotted ball of worry growing in Caleb’s stomach. Musings on the meaning, worries about the sounds in the walls, the creatures living deep within the ruins, before moving on to discussion of the actual organization of the city into wards. The Praesidis Ward, the Ars Ward, and finally, the Cognouza Ward.

Even as he scans the words, feverish with intent and excitement, Caleb cannot help but find himself equally enthralled as he is disturbed. Philosophers, dreamers, and mages all. The similarities are not flattering, but he cannot help himself, reading about their intentions. Their pursuits. Even knowing what they are now, recalling the projected terror, the visceral reaction they’d all have vicariously through Vokodo at the encroaching city-being, Caleb cannot keep the thrill of excitement from sparking in his chest.

This  _ thing _ has its claws in Molly, and here Caleb is, giddy with excitement that not even the guilt that’s growing can mitigate. What a pair they make, he and Mollymauk.

But he loses track of the guilt as he eats up the lore about what happened to the Cougnouza ward, transported millennia ago into the Astral Sea for safekeeping, instead driving them to  _ become _ something…other.

And then, the book changes.

Dramatically.

No longer is it a journal of any degree of legibility. Top to bottom, the pages are scrawled thick with unintelligible scratchings, shapes and symbols, glyphs and hash marks. It’s inelegant, without purpose, like the scribing of a madman. What looks like language is…nothing. Meaningless, arbitrary, frustrating.

And yet.  _ Yet _ –

Drawing darkness, nightmare fractals, the machinations of dream and insubstance and esoteric existentiality build and build, the detail spiraling down and down with the semblance of pattern that dissolves away as quickly as it first appeared. Infuriating, encapsulating, impossible. Beautiful and horrific all at once and Caleb cannot think except to turn page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page nine after page after page after page after page after nine page after page after page after page after page after page after page after page nine after page after page after page after page after page nine after page after page after page after page after page after page after page after nine page after page after page after nine page after page after page after page nine after page after page after page after afte̸͂̇r̸͛̓ ̵͋͝ṗ̸̈á̷͝g̵̔͛ė̶̎ ̵͛̑a̸̒̕f̸̚͝t̷͗͗ẽ̴͠ṛ̷͝ ̷͑͝p̷̈́͋a̷̓͝ n̵̨̢̛̺͔̥͍̙̿̋̚ị̷̢̡̖̭͓͕̣͈̮̹̱̤̥͇̙̒̉̀̍̇͝ͅn̴̢̛̜͇̻̥͙͉̗̯͔̱̻̎̈́͛͋̐̽̓͊̓̈̾͋̋͊̿̕͝͠ͅë̷̳̻̦͉̳̮̖̩̩̖̰͍̭̠́̍͆̂̍͂͋̂̽͠ͅg̸̐̈ẻ̶̂a̸̒̕f̸̚͝t̷͗͗ẽ̴͠ṛ̷͝ ̷͑͝p̷̈́͋a̷̓͝g̸̐̈ẻ̶̂a̸̒̕f̸̚͝t̷͗͗ n̵̨̢̛̺͔̥͍̙̿̋̚ị̷̢̡̖̭͓͕̣͈̮̹̱̤̥͇̙̒̉̀̍̇͝ͅn̴̢̛̜͇̻̥͙͉̗̯͔̱̻̎̈́͛͋̐̽̓͊̓̈̾͋̋͊̿̕͝͠ͅë̷̳̻̦͉̳̮̖̩̩̖̰͍̭̠́̍͆̂̍͂͋̂̽͠ͅẽ̴͠ṛ̷͝ ̷͑͝p̷̈́͋a̷̓͝g̸̐̈ẻ̶̂a̸̒̕f̸̚͝t̷͗͗ẽ̴͠ṛ̷͝ ̷͑͝ ̷͑͝p̷̈́͋a̷̓͝g̸̐̈ẻ̶̂--

Caleb jolts back in his seat as the book is ripped away from him.

“I think that's enough reading for now.” Even in his dazed state, Caleb doesn’t miss the tinge of concern in Molly’s tone. “So. What'd you think?”

Slowly, Caleb turns to Beauregard, whose expression mirrors that which he anticipates is his own. “We're talking so much about dreams, this is— this is dreams on paper.” He doesn’t know precisely why he says it hushed; he simply does.

“Yeah,” she breathes just as reverently.

“Well.” The word is a heavy weight between them. Caleb blinks up at Molly in turn. “Think on it a bit. We've got a bit of travel. If perhaps you've got an idea, come let me know.”

And with that, breakfast finished, he and the Tomb Takers depart to ready themselves for the journey.

When they’ve all gone, Caleb’s still blinking away the mess of ink on parchment that lingers behind his eyes. But Jester banishes it momentarily for the both of them, coming to stand opposite, a swath of blue and white.

“Be careful with that book. That's what Lucien was looking at when he became the Nonagon. It's a pathway. He might be doing it on purpose, you know?”

Maybe he stammers a response. He can’t be sure.

The rest of the meal – long gone cold – he eats in a daze. Veth says some things to him, and Fjord is talking generally at the group, but how and when he finishes his porridge, Caleb cannot rightly say. Eventually, he finds himself in his room, packing, though the journey there is blurry. A blink later, he’s at the foyer, staring down the Tomb Takers who gather around Mollymauk. Though he’s not the tallest of their group, what with Zoran standing beside him, he still stands taller than the rest, if not even to them. Somehow, Caleb thinks, were Molly as short as Otis, he would still stand out as the center of the Tomb Takers’ universe. They surround him in a half moon, they look to him, and where he looks, they do too.

Caleb shivers.

Blinks.

NINE

Blinks again.

"As requested, to build trust in the bridge that's been so asked of us, I've shown you something very private and personal to me. As a response, just show me that you still have it."

Nodding complacently, Caleb pulls the amber from under his collar, where it usually lays close and warm over his heart. Molly takes it in hand, makes a show of inspecting. There’s a moment where he blanches a bit, the colour draining from his cheeks, and Caleb realizes that Vess DeRogna is still in there.

“I could take this with me right now. Why shouldn’t I?” he asks. All part of the performance.

“Because you like us,” Jester retorts, followed by a whole slew of responses from the rest of the Nein, who are there too. When they arrived, Caleb isn’t sure. Time is…slipping from him.

But he feels he has to make an effort. “If you hold onto it, you won't get to stay in my tower again tonight.”

“If you don’t want to let me in, I can always just dispel it.”

“Touché.” He looks once more at the amber, fathoming its depths.  _ Perhaps _ , Caleb thinks to himself,  _ he is checking to see if Lady DeRogna is moving in there.  _ “Well, we made a deal.” And with that, Molly hands it back over. Not that there was really ever any worry that he wouldn’t, of course. Nevertheless, Caleb feels more secure with it back around his neck and safe beneath the shield of his clothes.

There’s scant few words exchanged afterwards. Single file, they exit the tower into the bright white oblivion of the tundra. It’s been worse, of course; when the sun is out in full force, not only is it inherently colder, but the glare from the snow has more than once left Caleb blinkingly blinded. Instead, today, the sun is absent, and the same thick fog grows thicker yet, ice crystals forming in the hair that keeps blowing onto his face, no matter his attempts at tying it back.

Almost inevitably, they end up lost again.

Several hours’ terrible chill later, when they’ve circled back on their own footprints, Molly has declared his undying hatred for Eiselcross and Caleb jams the wand back into the snow and the tower door springs into existence a little later.

Frozen to the bone, beyond the point of shivering, numb from cold, they enter back into that golden arcane warmth. Only then does Caleb really recognize how miserably terrible the conditions were. The blood in his hands is thick. The joints don’t want to bend and his muscles burn from the continual exertion. 

"Not going to lie, this is a very welcome change of pace,” Molly says, his teeth just starting to jitter. “My thanks."

Maybe it’s the conversation from the night before. Maybe it’s something else. But Caleb just cannot keep his mouth shut. “If you're a good boy, we can do this every night.”

Molly doesn’t blink, but it looks an awful lot as though he’d like to. Instead, his brows raise on his forehead and his lips curl in a smirk. "I like it when you're condescending. It's attractive."

“He's always condescending,” comes Caduceus’ comment.

Veth, softly, counters. “He's always  _ attractive _ .”

But Molly just watches him, eyes narrowing and Caleb can’t help but feel heat under his collar. "That's dangerous." The words come off a purr. Caleb shivers again, but this time, it's not from the cold.

Not at all.

(Molly has always exuded a warmth all his own. Only now does Caleb find he can properly appreciate it.)

The Tomb Takers, now twice having stayed within the tower’s walls, waste no time in taking to their rooms, presumably for hot baths, and Molly announces to them all that they’ll reconvene for dinner in half an hour, thus leaving the Mighty Nein totally alone for the first time since that morning.

Predictably, they descend into instant chaos, discussing theories, plans, ideas for the future. First, Beau starts on the upper levels again, before abandoning the need to satiate that curiosity in favour of talk regarding the Cobalt Reserve, wanting to learn more, especially after her peek at the book, and from there the conversation trails straight back to Essek and whether or not he’d be a viable source of support moving forward, then, right back to teleporting away, which in turn leads back to the Cobalt Reserve and Yudala Fon.

Caleb’s head spins.

“Let’s just go up then and talk there.” Looking up to the iris, he speaks, the Zemnian falling practiced from his lips. “Fort, doch nicht vergessen.”

Together – minus one – the Mighty Nein rise up into Caleb’s private chambers. All nine rooms mock him, but then, were he not such a glutton for punishment, he would not have taunted them with the unknown.

After all, he knows his friends too well to have imagined he could get away without showing them for long.

It’s still in half daze that he instructs them, casually, to pick three rooms. He tries very hard not to think about the potential they have to open doors he’s not ready for yet. Doors behind which hide pains he has not shared in detail, things which he does not want them to have to relive (well, some of them) and in the same token, good memories he doesn’t yet feel he deserves.

Rapidly, the requests come in. Doors one, four, and nine. And all in all, they’re some of the least terrible that could have been picked, save, except for door one.

Even he has not yet been in door one.

Four, Astrid’s dormitory, is accompanied by the sort of gentle ribbing he’d anticipated, considering he’d preserved the after-evidence of one of their many nights of passion (though this was no ordinary night, nor had their time together been ordinary passion). And nine is soft, but melancholy, knowing what he does, and what the others do not.

The last, his parents’ home, is by far the worst.

Walking through it brings a thrill – the barren walls, the creaky step, the light through his bedroom window. Simple, modest, but home – that also feels forbidden. He hasn’t the right to enjoy this place; the memory wasn’t meant to for enjoyment, but preservation. Remembrance. It feels a little like a sin against his parents to derive any pleasure from this brief indulgence. Things have been different, yes. Better even, but his self-flagellation cannot condone this most momentary transgression.

And because they are his friends, they pick up on it immediately.

Caleb considers, while Caduceus pontificates and Jester frowns piteously, that Mollymauk would  _ despise _ these rooms, if he were to understand what they meant, if he were to learn at all of their existence. Of course, that changes nothing. Memory is Mollymauk’s antithesis. Memory is Caleb’s curse.

Later, when they’re not in the middle of the most nerve-wracking long con in his whole history, Caleb might take the time to unpack just exactly what that means to him. But not now.

Finally, Caleb takes them up to the Ninth floor. The room of possibility.

He’s still distracted as they walk around the space, testing its limits, musing on the other doors too, much to his chagrin, and eventually, through the course of the ticking in his own brain, Caleb muses that their time is up, that they must return for a very cranky dinner, if the state of the Tomb Takers when they entered is anything to go by.

It’s been barely half a day and already he can hardly wait to get Molly alone again. To ask him about the book, to further adjust their plan, to make sure that somehow he’s reminded of the night before. Of camaraderie and care, of support.

Of love.

As they walk back to the iris, Caleb spares a glance at the door behind which his home hides. A place that holds more love than any other he can ever remember.

Deeply, secretly, Caleb wishes that Molly will someday come to know that elusive feeling, and that, that time, it will never leave him behind. He’s been through too much already as it is.

When they descend, the Tomb Takers and Molly are already waiting. "Perfect timing.” A pointed look falls in Caleb’s direction, though he isn’t quite fluent enough in subtle Mollymauk facial expressions to know what precisely it means. “I think food's in order."

A little more comfortable – or a little more cocky. Maybe both – the Nein tease and take the piss from the Tomb Takers the entire time. They joke about the food, about the services, about anything and everything that can possibly get a rise out of the Tomb Takers’ seemingly stoic and impassioned leader. To his credit, Caleb can’t be sure if Molly’s exasperation is the real result of the high amount of pressure he’s under, or if he’s just gotten that good at acting. Worriedly, Caleb settles on the latter.

“So, like, where did you grow up?” Jester asks between bites of her zucchini muffins. 

Molly shifts, seemingly uncomfortable. “I didn’t know we were into  _ sharin’ _ now. Thought you were all about finders keepers.” 

“Well, we found you, didn’t we?” 

Laser focus falls on Yasha as she speaks and instinctively, Caleb’s breath hitches. 

“Shadycreek Run.”

Collectively, Caleb feels the Nein shudder. But mercifully, Molly himself appears mostly unfazed. As the Nein react to his revelation, and the Tomb Takers take up introducing themselves in turn, however sparingly, Caleb uses the opportunity to study Cree. She doesn’t seem surprised by the answer. How much had Molly discovered about Lucien that he had never wanted to know in the first place? How much knowledge did he bear in place of the memories that fled with Lucien’s death? 

In typical Molly fashion, when the questions come back around to him, he pushes back, maybe a little harsher than he would have under normal circumstances. What he knows, if anything, isn’t something he wants to dwell on. 

“What about someone named Gustav?” Yasha presses on, still. “Gustav Fletching?” 

Subtly, ever so subtly, Molly’s cheek twitches through his plastered on smile. “Afraid I haven’t heard of him.” 

A direct lie, but thankfully, one of which Caduceus already knows. Yasha, however, remains none the wiser, and they let the personal questions fall away in favour of Fjord’s bead on Aeor. Not that one will really end up more successful than the other, Caleb’s certain. 

That is, until Molly mentions the hidden entrance at the Northwest corner. 

What do their conversations look like, behind the scenes? Cree and Molly. Caleb cannot fathom the precision necessary to balance Molly’s supposed memory loss as Lucien with the intensive acting job he has to maintain for some semblance of authority. 

Somehow, Caleb’s certain that whatever they look like, sound like, Molly will never, ever share. 

A course of severe questioning and surprisingly succinct answers is followed by dessert, which Molly tears into greedily. How long since he’d had something decadent, all to himself? How long since he’d been allowed to indulge? Mentally, Caleb instructs some cats to take more treats to Molly’s room for later. 

He’s so preoccupied that he misses how they got onto the topic. 

“What do you mean you’re not tired?” Jester’s voice pitches upward at the end. “Like, we’re so fucking achy and stuff!” 

“Do you not...need sleep?” Yasha’s concern is palpable and Caleb wishes there were some way he could intervene. 

Except that there isn’t a way. 

Molly is on his own. 

“No. Not...in the conventional way.” 

“So, how do you dream? Because isn’t that how you - isn’t that the thing with the— ?” 

Cold - colder than Caleb has seen him yet - Molly’s face goes impassive. “Animals sleep. But minds that have been freed can dream anytime they like. In some ways, I’m dreaming right now.” 

Not when he’d slaughtered Vess DeRogna, not when the eye on his neck had moved, nor when he canceled their polymorphs, nor even when he told them of his ability to control the Tomb Takers, not  _ once _ had Caleb felt as truly and properly afraid as he does now. 

Not once has he faltered in his belief that Molly is who he says. That they can save him. 

Until now. 

_ Animals sleep _ . 

The insinuation is clear, but he’d said it with all the effort at derision of the mildly unimpressed. Animals, not even disgusting. Just pathetic enough. 

When he looks down at his lap, Caleb sees his knuckles are white, hand clenched around a bunch of his trousers’ fabric, hand shaking with the effort it takes to hold his fears back from the boiling point. That maybe he’s been duped. 

That Molly might not be in there at all. 

But no.  _ No _ . 

He  _ knows _ Molly. He does. It was Molly whom he spoke with the night before, Molly whom he had comforted, even though he cannot comfort himself. 

Beau clears her throat. “You know, Lucien, last night, you were asking if we had any good stories and we were a little exhausted from the day, but sleeping on it, and just felceting on the events that have transpired, I was reminded about one of the first outings that we all went on as a group. You familiar with Yeenoghu? You heard of him?”

“Can’t say that I have.” 

“This demonic entity. We found ourselves in Alfield and when we got there, the entire town was under siege by a bunch of gnolls. We were asked to investigate it, dug deeper and realized these gnolls, these wild, chaotic animals, those creatures, they were formed into an organized cult. Didn’t really expect it and underestimated them to be totally honest, tracked them down into this cave and gnolls and a few humans all there, and they were worshipping this manticore. Feeding villagers to it all in the name of this god, this higher gnoll demon being. Well, we quickly killed the manticore and her cub. Kind of sad. It was a tough choice, yeah. Just like that. Cult was done. Cleared them out, rescued some villagers.”

A pause. All the Tomb Takers had ceased eating. Cree’s yellow eyes hold Beauregard in her sights like prey. Then, Molly speaks. “Would you say you were heroes?” 

_ What kind of question is that? _

“Of Alfield, yes. At least, for the day. But you know, that was a while ago. Time has moved on, a war has happened. Sure, people have not necessarily forgotten, but—” 

“Tell me this, Beauregard.” The use of her name throws Caleb for a loop - not once has Molly used their names when they are all together. Not once. “Is that the only cult you’ve killed?”

“Guess it depends on what you define a cult.” 

A few low murmurs reference Travelercon, and Molly’s brow raises just a hair more. 

“I would say it is definitely the first cult that we’ve killed,” Beau replies in a measured, though blatantly threatening tone. “Who knows if it’ll be the last.” 

“Good story.” Lips thinning, Molly pushes back his plate. “But I’ve reached the end of my sweet tooth. Rest well,” he adds, looking at Caleb. The unstated is implied.  _ I’ll be waiting. _

One by one they file away and Caleb is left stewing in the tension that follows in their wake. 

“You just had to go and antagonize, didn’t you?” he turns to Beauregard. “They already know how we feel about them. Why reiterate it? For good measure? Why push the limit?” Not so much because of Molly, of course. It is Cree’s glare which haunts him instead. 

Beau glares back at him. “Why? Are you so keen to be buddy buddy now? Look, we both read that book and-” 

“Can you kill him?” Sure, it’s harsh, but it shuts her up long enough for Caleb to get through the rest of his spiel. “If you push him just far enough, and they attack, do you really think you have it in you to strike down the one who was struck down for you?” Too late, Caleb realizes what exactly he’s said. In response, he bites his tongue so hard it bleeds. From the opposite end of the table, Caduceus shakes his head minutely in reprobation. “We don’t know yet just what we are dealing with. They kept their abilities from us fairly well on the river while we flaunted ours. They know what they need to know about us and we know nothing about them. We are at a severe disadvantage here, and you’re bandying about words like you’re juggling swords. Or fire. There is little difference here. We are on-” He raises his hands, shaking, into the air. “- a knife’s edge here. He was not happy tonight, and neither was Cree, and we all know that he listens to her. That she has pull with them all. You are making yourself and us unpopular. In fact, it may already be too late. What we have, they don’t really need. They have already made it clear that we are just convenient-” 

“Well have you considered that maybe the reason they teamed up with us is because we can actually be useful? He sent us crashing to the ground, sure. He’s got some special bullshit magic, but he  _ has _ to be keeping us around for a reason, and that means, I can push some buttons. Within reason. And seeing as we’re all still here?” Beau looks around the dining hall with an ironic eye. “I don’t think I pushed too far just yet, if we’re not dead. I’m not  _ stupid _ , Caleb.” 

His eyes are burning. He wants to scream the truth to the heavens. 

He doesn’t. 

“I know you are not.” He loves her. Bright, fierce Beauregard. A sister in arms. Intelligent and loyal and driven. Unrepentantly herself. Dedicated to her cause. Of course she can hurt him the most, and the most easily for that matter.

“He’s not our friend, Caleb,” she retorts, driving the dagger home. “Why do you keep pretending he is?” 

There’s a chilly silence around the table as they two stare one another down, the challenge between them slowly rising. There’s nothing he can say. Not a thing. 

“Mollymauk wouldn’t want this.” Yasha’s chair creaks back over the floor, rending the mood of the room. “Any of it. And I want  _ him _ . I just don’t know how-” She looks between the two, sighing, a bone tired, soul weary sigh. “I don’t know  _ how _ . But he wouldn’t want you fighting. He wouldn’t. So stop.” 

“Either way, we’re fucked.” Beau pushes back, crossing her arms and sinking down in her chair. 

“We’ve taken out a lot of cults though, right?” If the waver in Jester’s voice is any indicator, she’s not far from tears. “Obann and the Angle of Irons. Uk’otoa. The gnolls.” 

“Yeah, and all of them have this connection with hunger,” Beau speaks up again, undaunted. “I’m not going to say they’re connected, but it’s hard not to look at our time together and not see commonality. It’s been a theme.” 

“And the hunger here is for power.” Fjord finishes. 

Veth nods vigorously. “It’s very universal.” 

“This still does not solve anything.” Caleb’s tired. So,  _ so _ tired. “Were they to come at us and - even if by some miracle - we are able to take them, I cannot envision a world in which we actively  _ want  _ to provoke them into a violent response. So, where do we go from here?” 

“Hold on. Let’s maybe go somewhere else.” Fjord holds the Star Razor aloft, in indication. Wearily, they all rise from the table. Beau throws him a glance, but Caleb cannot stand to meet it. It’s wrong to be upset with her, he knows. Without the full burden of knowledge, she can’t be expected to act in ways that are conducive to their best interests. It isn’t her fault. 

It’s his. 

On their way down to the Salon, Caduceus’ hand falls on his shoulder; the look in his eyes is meaningful, but the damage is already done. No going back on it all now. 

When they’re safely in the brilliance of the library, surrounded by the storeys tall stained glass mural in Molly’s honour, Fjord pulls the sword again, its brilliant illumination pulsing forth before he looks around the room for a scrying eye. 

Fervently, for perhaps the only time in his life, Caleb hopes that they’re being spied upon, because it will mean that Molly does not go to bed wondering. 

“Shit.” Even if he’d have said ‘mushrooms’, the inflection alone would have been enough indicator for Caleb as to the truth. “Well,” he backtracks. “Really they all have been quite nice.” 

“We must operate as though we are always being watched.” Unceremoniously, Caleb sits down on a couch. “There’s nothing else to be done for it. We could say what we like, and it would make no difference now. They have heard us tens of times over already, plotting against them, I am sure. What harm can once more do after our dinner together tonight. They under no illusions any more and now neither are we.”

Shooting him a glare, Beau sits across from him. “You’re a hypocrite.” 

“Ja. So I am. I am tired and I am sad and I am-”  _ Hopeless _ . The word does not force its way past his lips. It cannot. Molly is listening. Molly  _ needs _ him to be hopeful. “I am determined. I don’t know. I just want us to think things through. This does not have to end in a bloodbath. They know it, and so do we. The only difference is that they won’t hesitate to fuck us up if they have to, ja? But they’re also in a rush and fighting us will set them back. Lucien is not patient people, if you take my meaning.”

“Who is it following?” Jester asks, and the Nein, saving Beau and Caleb, who stay where they sit, rush about the room to see which of them the eye will follow. 

Fjord’s gaze indicates Yasha, leaving Caleb unsurprised. 

“Maybe he remembers me? I don’t know. Again, that’s the thing - what is it again? Hope? That I keep holding on to?” 

It’s just what Molly needs to hear, Caleb could practically cry with relief. 

Eventually, it blips out and reupps again, that time, staring at Fjord. 

“What are we going to do here?” Caleb posits, watching the empty space above his head as though Molly’s head is floating there. “We’re working together. You don’t really trust us, we don’t really trust you. You have some idea of what you want to do with us. We feel compelled to follow. Are you having fun at least?” Maybe it’s a low blow, but he’s still meant to pretend Molly is Lucien. 

“It’s gone,” Fjord indicates. “Nope, wait, back again.” 

“So, what’s the plan then?” Yasha continues. She’s leaning with her back up against the wall beside the fireplace. “Any armaments?” 

“Any canon?” chimes in Veth, though he thinks it’s mostly for a spot of levity and not out of a serious desire. 

“Well, you can play around a bit on the floor below us, but if you are wondering if you can fight here, you don’t have to worry about damaging anything because it all resets to my liking.” 

“Or could we trap them on a floor?” Fjord gestures widely. “Keep them from leaving and then restricting the entrance and exit out of the room?” 

But Jester only frowns. “Well, couldn’t he just cancel the tower, like he did the dome? And our polymorph? If he wanted to, he could make the tower disappear.” 

_ But he won’t. It’s Molly. He is Molly _ . Caleb clenches his fists more tightly than ever. 

“He could, but he might not,” says Caduceus, looking contemplative. Never has Caleb been so glad that he’d confided in him. “And there’s no guarantee that we’ll have to fight them. I think we’re, uhh, jumping to conclusions here. Besides. They’re listening. What’s the point in making them more suspicious of us? We may as well be having these discussions face to face.”

“So, what, you’re saying we should just go along with it all?” Beau crosses her arms. “I thought you were the one who-“ 

“Beauregard.” The caution of Caleb’s tone successfully quiets her. “You are not wrong. But perhaps there are other ways. Better ways. Perhaps, perhaps we have been too settled on one perspective here.” Firmly, he looks between them. “We all want one thing here, I think, whether we have said it aloud or not. And the more we alienate them, the harder it will be to achieve that goal. We came out the gate upfront with our mistrust. But they have not hurt us. And while I don’t think they would go out of their way to save us, were we in danger, I don’t think they mean us any malicious harm.” 

Beau blinks. Long and slow, her head shifting between Caduceus and himself, the pieces clicking into place. But Beau is smart – sometimes, Caleb thinks, she might be smarter than himself – and so says nothing, though the expression on her face is alarmingly intense. 

“If we expect them to fight us, and prepare for it, we’re digging our own graves.” Everyone turns to Veth, who only shrugs. “That’s what you’re saying isn’t it? Why don’t we just ask, like, the Traveler or the Wildmother or someone if they intend to do us harm and if they don’t, then we don’t have to go on like this anymore. And because they’re listening, they’ll know that we’re not a threat and everyone can actually eat a meal without tension thicker than the pea soup your cats served two nights ago.” 

“And,” Fjord finally sits down himself. “We can all agree that regardless of whether they intend to harm us or not, they’re shady and they’re making no effort to hide that. Our wariness is warranted, but truly, if they wanted to harm us, they would have. I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop and it hasn’t yet. Either they need us for something, or we’re just convenient, or we’re just amusing to them. It doesn’t really matter.” 

“I don’t like any of this!” Jester cries out, suddenly, her hands flying to the Traveler’s symbol. “Arty! Please, tell us how we can get Molly back.” 

There’s a whisper of wind through the salon. Wind that shouldn’t be there, practically speaking. It smells like sandalwood and rain and as soon as it’s come, it’s gone and Jester is frowning. 

“What did he say?” The anxious quality in Yasha’s voice resonates with all of them, Caleb imagines. Even himself, in light of the secret he’s bound to protect. 

The frown turns into a wibbling lip. “He says that he can’t help me there. I don’t know what that means for Molly.” 

“It might not mean anything, Jess,” Fjord starts to console her, the others chiming in, but Caleb focuses instead on Caduceus who sets about unobtrusively praying to Melora in the same manner. After a moment, his lips quirk and then he settles down on the rug before the fireplace and begins the same ritual he had completed only the night before. 

While Caduceus settles into his trance, the others decide on a sending to Essek and Caleb just feels…

Powerless. Impotent against the course of things. Without reason, he cannot sway the Nein to his perspective, and he cannot give them reason because Molly has forbidden it. 

In frustration, he stands up and walks into the labyrinthine towers of bookshelves. As soon as he can see only the barest flicker of firelight on the stacks, he rests against the nearest one, his head falling back. Telling them seems like the only course of action that makes sense, the only way that they can relent in their suspicion enough to make productive headway. 

But Molly’s frantic expression from that first night’s rendezvous haunts Caleb’s waking hours as well as his nights. 

And not for the first time, Caleb wonders if there is still more Molly knows that he isn’t sharing. 

The worst part of that consideration isn’t that Molly is lying. The worst part is wondering what’s so terrible that Molly feels the need to hide it at all. 

But eventually, Caleb cannot hide anymore, and he comes back around to the group. Only Yasha looks up as he does so, her mismatched eyes plaintive.  _ Would that I could give you what you want. Would that I could end all this right now. Would that I could. _

“Unless we want to kick off a fight beforehand, which I don't think any of us is feeling too strongly about, I think we're along for the ride, right?” Fjord is saying, his hands up in question.

Caduceus, just come out of his trance nods. “For a little while.” 

“I love home field advantage, that's the only reason I'm pushing it,” Fjord crosses his arms. “But if he’s not out to harm us, then there’s really no reason for it. And Caleb is right. We ought not create one. What I really want to see where this goes. And we have that opportunity here.” 

_ Focus, Widogast.  _ “Well,” he opens, announcing his presence. “For those of us interested in trying to redeem our old friend, we certainly don't have a method to do so at the moment. The thin hope would be that-- something about where we're going. Seems pretty thin. But I do not want to put that at risk. I say we-“

“Commit.” Veth’s voice is unwavering. “It’s why we’re here. We’ve been talking around this for two days now. We have to make a choice. Now.”

The silence is avoidance. The silence is denial. No one wants to be the first to speak.

A few, lingering moments later, Beau looks up at Caleb and nods. It’s half question, half agreement.  _ You sure?  _ He nods back, lips pursed.  _ Ja. _

“Alright.” The word expels from her lips like a sigh. “Fine. We commit.”

It’s what he wanted. So, it’s beyond Caleb why her acquiescence feels more like a death sentence that a victory.

The last remaining threads of discussion handled, they eventually file up to Yasha’s bedroom. There is nothing he can do to prevent the group sleepover. He hopes that Molly understands why they cannot meet that evening. Based upon Fjord’s assessment that they were constantly being watched, he imagines it’s likely. Not that Molly probably appreciates it, even if he does understand that there was no getting around it. Even when Jester returns after her prolonged…’bathroom break’ announcing that she’d polymorphed Lucien into a cat and gone running around with him for the better part of half an hour, Caleb isn’t sure how Molly will react.

They may have committed, but their continual threats to start a fight have them nervous that the Tomb Takers might not be terribly appreciative, nor trustworthy of their final assessment to ride it out. Since Molly can only see through Cree’s spells, that means that Cree sees too, and Caleb needs no reminder that Cree sees them all as a direct threat to the person she cares about the most. Even if Caleb didn’t know already, he would be able to see it in the way her fur bristles when they enter a room. 

Such are the thoughts that spiral him down into the eventual pit of sleep.

It starts as an ache. The persistent cold settling deep in his bones. Not a cold like the wilderness of Eiselcross. Something more alien and unsettling. At first, the darkness throws Caleb off. He recalls, clearly, the place where he fell asleep, how the subtle golden glow of magically dimmed candles should permeate the space. And even then, Fjord’s eyes hold their own luminescence, much like Veth’s had as a goblin, or Molly’s, whose eerie red gaze slicing through the dark had startled more than one of their number more than once on that initial trip from Trostenwald to Zadash.

But this cold, empty space is pitch black.

Out of habit, Caleb attempts to reorient himself, but before he can define the space of his dreams, it alters.

Not unlike a fire, though from nothing in that mystifying arcane fashion, a sickening red glow pulses into being before him. Grows larger and larger until it circumscribes all space. It is warm, too, reversing the chill as it stares into his being, a cutting assessment of his very soul. Without language, intent sears in Caleb’s consciousness, his gut roiling, his heart seizing, and just when he thinks it will burst, it recedes. Only a throbbing stab remains, an intangible umbilical tether. A warm point of connection on his very soul.

Its light grows, bathing him through in its red glow, and a door in his mind opens.

_ W̶̟͕̬̳͙̙̱͇̲̘͚̩̣̞̟̣̺͍̱̥̘͗͋̀̈͂͑́̋̌́̈́͗̂͆̓̃̐̇̃̚̚͜ͅͅė̸̛̺̻͗̊͗̈́̄͆̿̋̓̎̏̊̇͋͆͂̄͝͝͠͝l̵̡̛̮̥͇̙̫̠̲̦͕͎͖̪̥͖̝̰̞̻̆̈̒̋͐͊̓̏̀́̐̋̄͝c̷̛̩̮̪̖͇̭͔̘̮̝̼͙̺͈̮̳̩̮̯̠͗̉̀̏̀̂̈́̿́̔̈́̀̂̃͗͊̒̉̊̃̈̚̕͘ơ̷̢̡̢̥̜̜̖̲̺͕̙̪̘̺̲̮͈͓̻͈̹̙̏̐̂́͂̒̓̒͐̒̕̚͝͝͝m̵̧̛̳͚̙̟͍̳̹͕͔͚̞͌̓̈́̈͗͝e̴͎̮̳͈̬͖̠͕̣͌͛̽͒ͅ  _

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_ W̶̟͕̬̳͙̙̱͇̲̘͚̩̣̞̟̣̺͍̱̥̘͗͋̀̈͂͑́̋̌́̈́͗̂͆̓̃̐̇̃̚̚͜ͅͅė̸̛̺̻͗̊͗̈́̄͆̿̋̓̎̏̊̇͋͆͂̄͝͝͠͝l̵̡̛̮̥͇̙̫̠̲̦͕͎͖̪̥͖̝̰̞̻̆̈̒̋͐͊̓̏̀́̐̋̄͝c̷̛̩̮̪̖͇̭͔̘̮̝̼͙̺͈̮̳̩̮̯̠͗̉̀̏̀̂̈́̿́̔̈́̀̂̃͗͊̒̉̊̃̈̚̕͘ơ̷̢̡̢̥̜̜̖̲̺͕̙̪̘̺̲̮͈͓̻͈̹̙̏̐̂́͂̒̓̒͐̒̕̚͝͝͝m̵̧̛̳͚̙̟͍̳̹͕͔͚̞͌̓̈́̈͗͝e̴͎̮̳͈̬͖̠͕̣͌͛̽͒ͅ _

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_W̶̟͕̬̳͙̙̱͇̲̘͚̩̣̞̟̣̺͍̱̥̘͗͋̀̈͂͑́̋̌́̈́͗̂͆̓̃̐̇̃̚̚͜ͅͅė̸̛̺̻͗̊͗̈́̄͆̿̋̓̎̏̊̇͋͆͂̄͝͝͠͝l̵̡̛̮̥͇̙̫̠̲̦͕͎͖̪̥͖̝̰̞̻̆̈̒̋͐͊̓̏̀́̐̋̄͝c̷̛̩̮̪̖͇̭͔̘̮̝̼͙̺͈̮̳̩̮̯̠͗̉̀̏̀̂̈́̿́̔̈́̀̂̃͗͊̒̉̊̃̈̚̕͘ơ̷̢̡̢̥̜̜̖̲̺͕̙̪̘̺̲̮͈͓̻͈̹̙̏̐̂́͂̒̓̒͐̒̕̚͝͝͝m̵̧̛̳͚̙̟͍̳̹͕͔͚̞͌̓̈́̈͗͝e̴͎̮̳͈̬͖̠͕̣͌͛̽͒ͅ_

_ W̶̟͕̬̳͙̙̱͇̲̘͚̩̣̞̟̣̺͍̱̥̘͗͋̀̈͂͑́̋̌́̈́͗̂͆̓̃̐̇̃̚̚͜ͅͅė̸̛̺̻͗̊͗̈́̄͆̿̋̓̎̏̊̇͋͆͂̄͝͝͠͝l̵̡̛̮̥͇̙̫̠̲̦͕͎͖̪̥͖̝̰̞̻̆̈̒̋͐͊̓̏̀́̐̋̄͝c̷̛̩̮̪̖͇̭͔̘̮̝̼͙̺͈̮̳̩̮̯̠͗̉̀̏̀̂̈́̿́̔̈́̀̂̃͗͊̒̉̊̃̈̚̕͘ơ̷̢̡̢̥̜̜̖̲̺͕̙̪̘̺̲̮͈͓̻͈̹̙̏̐̂́͂̒̓̒͐̒̕̚͝͝͝m̵̧̛̳͚̙̟͍̳̹͕͔͚̞͌̓̈́̈͗͝e̴͎̮̳͈̬͖̠͕̣͌͛̽͒ͅ _

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_W̶̟͕̬̳͙̙̱͇̲̘͚̩̣̞̟̣̺͍̱̥̘͗͋̀̈͂͑́̋̌́̈́͗̂͆̓̃̐̇̃̚̚͜ͅͅė̸̛̺̻͗̊͗̈́̄͆̿̋̓̎̏̊̇͋͆͂̄͝͝͠͝l̵̡̛̮̥͇̙̫̠̲̦͕͎͖̪̥͖̝̰̞̻̆̈̒̋͐͊̓̏̀́̐̋̄͝c̷̛̩̮̪̖͇̭͔̘̮̝̼͙̺͈̮̳̩̮̯̠͗̉̀̏̀̂̈́̿́̔̈́̀̂̃͗͊̒̉̊̃̈̚̕͘ơ̷̢̡̢̥̜̜̖̲̺͕̙̪̘̺̲̮͈͓̻͈̹̙̏̐̂́͂̒̓̒͐̒̕̚͝͝͝m̵̧̛̳͚̙̟͍̳̹͕͔͚̞͌̓̈́̈͗͝e̴͎̮̳͈̬͖̠͕̣͌͛̽͒ͅ_

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_W̶̟͕̬̳͙̙̱͇̲̘͚̩̣̞̟̣̺͍̱̥̘͗͋̀̈͂͑́̋̌́̈́͗̂͆̓̃̐̇̃̚̚͜ͅͅė̸̛̺̻͗̊͗̈́̄͆̿̋̓̎̏̊̇͋͆͂̄͝͝͠͝l̵̡̛̮̥͇̙̫̠̲̦͕͎͖̪̥͖̝̰̞̻̆̈̒̋͐͊̓̏̀́̐̋̄͝c̷̛̩̮̪̖͇̭͔̘̮̝̼͙̺͈̮̳̩̮̯̠͗̉̀̏̀̂̈́̿́̔̈́̀̂̃͗͊̒̉̊̃̈̚̕͘ơ̷̢̡̢̥̜̜̖̲̺͕̙̪̘̺̲̮͈͓̻͈̹̙̏̐̂́͂̒̓̒͐̒̕̚͝͝͝m̵̧̛̳͚̙̟͍̳̹͕͔͚̞͌̓̈́̈͗͝e̴͎̮̳͈̬͖̠͕̣͌͛̽͒ͅ_

_ W̶̟͕̬̳͙̙̱͇̲̘͚̩̣̞̟̣̺͍̱̥̘͗͋̀̈͂͑́̋̌́̈́͗̂͆̓̃̐̇̃̚̚͜ͅͅė̸̛̺̻͗̊͗̈́̄͆̿̋̓̎̏̊̇͋͆͂̄͝͝͠͝l̵̡̛̮̥͇̙̫̠̲̦͕͎͖̪̥͖̝̰̞̻̆̈̒̋͐͊̓̏̀́̐̋̄͝c̷̛̩̮̪̖͇̭͔̘̮̝̼͙̺͈̮̳̩̮̯̠͗̉̀̏̀̂̈́̿́̔̈́̀̂̃͗͊̒̉̊̃̈̚̕͘ơ̷̢̡̢̥̜̜̖̲̺͕̙̪̘̺̲̮͈͓̻͈̹̙̏̐̂́͂̒̓̒͐̒̕̚͝͝͝m̵̧̛̳͚̙̟͍̳̹͕͔͚̞͌̓̈́̈͗͝e̴͎̮̳͈̬͖̠͕̣͌͛̽͒ͅ _

_W̶̟͕̬̳͙̙̱͇̲̘͚̩̣̞̟̣̺͍̱̥̘͗͋̀̈͂͑́̋̌́̈́͗̂͆̓̃̐̇̃̚̚͜ͅͅė̸̛̺̻͗̊͗̈́̄͆̿̋̓̎̏̊̇͋͆͂̄͝͝͠͝l̵̡̛̮̥͇̙̫̠̲̦͕͎͖̪̥͖̝̰̞̻̆̈̒̋͐͊̓̏̀́̐̋̄͝c̷̛̩̮̪̖͇̭͔̘̮̝̼͙̺͈̮̳̩̮̯̠͗̉̀̏̀̂̈́̿́̔̈́̀̂̃͗͊̒̉̊̃̈̚̕͘ơ̷̢̡̢̥̜̜̖̲̺͕̙̪̘̺̲̮͈͓̻͈̹̙̏̐̂́͂̒̓̒͐̒̕̚͝͝͝m̵̧̛̳͚̙̟͍̳̹͕͔͚̞͌̓̈́̈͗͝e̴͎̮̳͈̬͖̠͕̣͌͛̽͒ͅ_

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_W̶̟͕̬̳͙̙̱͇̲̘͚̩̣̞̟̣̺͍̱̥̘͗͋̀̈͂͑́̋̌́̈́͗̂͆̓̃̐̇̃̚̚͜ͅͅė̸̛̺̻͗̊͗̈́̄͆̿̋̓̎̏̊̇͋͆͂̄͝͝͠͝l̵̡̛̮̥͇̙̫̠̲̦͕͎͖̪̥͖̝̰̞̻̆̈̒̋͐͊̓̏̀́̐̋̄͝c̷̛̩̮̪̖͇̭͔̘̮̝̼͙̺͈̮̳̩̮̯̠͗̉̀̏̀̂̈́̿́̔̈́̀̂̃͗͊̒̉̊̃̈̚̕͘ơ̷̢̡̢̥̜̜̖̲̺͕̙̪̘̺̲̮͈͓̻͈̹̙̏̐̂́͂̒̓̒͐̒̕̚͝͝͝m̵̧̛̳͚̙̟͍̳̹͕͔͚̞͌̓̈́̈͗͝e̴͎̮̳͈̬͖̠͕̣͌͛̽͒ͅ_

The low hum in the background grows, swells, crescendos into an unbearable buzz-

_Ẅ̸̨̲́ͅE̷̦̪͆L̷̰̇̽͝ͅČ̴̥͒O̵̪̎͗M̵̨͔͑E̶̓͂W̸̡̡͖͎͔̰͑͗͗́̒̚Ė̸̖̟̰͓̱̓͑̎̐̔L̵̝̦͎̭̋̍͋̅̅̒̑̾͐̅̔̓͘̕͠C̸̟̬͚̥̋̐̀̃̆̊̂̿͘Ó̵̢͖̦̞̖̞͉̙̳̩̥̲̞̈́M̸̨̻̯̬̳͉̓̄͐͒͌͐͠E̵̢̖̳̝̱̖̹̘̜̯̳̭͗̒́̈̆͝͠ͅŴ̵͕͖̫̣̌́̓͒̃̆̀͒̿̿̿̉̅̌̃͐̓̇̓͐̀̑̕̕̕͠Ë̵̢̡̧̨̛̛̜̬̻̝̙̺̪̹̖̗͉̤͖̪̟͓̠̻͇́̉̈́̈̄͑͗͐͒́̇̋̅͗̓̚̚͘͠͝L̷̫͔̺̞̘̜̭̣̖̖̈́͐̓Ç̸̫̪͖̩̱̙̳͓̤͔̟̩͓̪̹͑͑͌̎̿͂͒̍͐͆͌̊̽̎̌͌͌͆̀͛̈́͘͘͝O̸̪̟̫͎̲̜̤̬̫̭͊̐̃͌̈́͑̂̑́̈̋̃͐͆͌̓̕M̷̮͇̖͍͎̙͈̦̂͂̇̏̔͆͌̂͆̅͂̒̊͒͐E̶̡̼͙͉͎͍̳̪͉̼̺̥̥̜̤̼̪̻͕̬͉͆̅̽͜W̵̢̨̡̭̺̖̝͎̼̤̊͌̄͐͆̈́̇̾̓̿̎̂̊̔̐̇̅͑̿͗̔̈̔̃̎̓̿͊̈́̄̂̒̌̚͘̚͘̚͝͠Ę̷̧̢̢̨̣͚̱̟̮̩̱͇̜̬̲̥̭̺͈͙̣̲͇̻̮̓̍͂̔̃̐̐̌̈́̈́͜͝L̷̨̢̤͇͎̳͖̭͈̮̻̭͍͓̱̉̃̔̿̉̃̿̑̏̒͘̚͜͝͝C̴̢̢̢̢̡͖̖̻̥͚̪͙͇̮̰̫͉̭̖̺͔̠̠̟̖̝̜̼̽̿̐̐̐̆̅͆̀̇͑̌̒̒̉̆̔̽̒̉̓́̅͑̚̕̚͠͝͠Ơ̴̢̧̢͚͓̟̩̜̞̼̭͈̠̱̭̮̳̼̭̗̱̻̯̲͎̩̼̾͐̔̍̒͜͜ͅͅͅͅM̶̧̡̛̫̞̣͙͕̰͉̞͇̩̫̲͍̊̄̍͌̄̃̾̾̏̈́̔̈̒̅̒͗̓̄̏͆̾̐̓́͌͗̈̃͆̑̃̐̒͒͛̚͝͝͝͝W̶̢̧̢̡̧̛̮̺̣̝̞̥̦̫̝̣͍̥̯̘͙̪͍̮͑͊̓̋̽̎͋̓̍̆̃̎̑̂̂̂̆͒̏̍͛̍̑̅̐̈́̃͌̈́̏̾͛̏͂̃̈́̈̈́̚̚̕̚͘͘͜͜͝͝E̶̢̨̡͚̹̼͇͕̱͙͔̯̥̦̱̗͎͓͎͓͙̹̬̪͐̽̈́̌͒̇̉̽̆͐̐̍͐̉̓͌̽̄̕͘͘͘͜͠L̴̢̛̩͆̾͂̒̎̒̊̃͑̉̆͂̓̽̏̾͂̇͊̿̒̅̊̋̐̐͝͝͠Ć̷̢̨̘̦̘͍̻̣͎̜͎͓͚͙͔̲͕̞̩͍̘͙̞͚̯̼̗̯̰̻͎͙̠̝͍̀͋̒͆̐͑̿̄̃͆̉͋͐͜͜͝ͅO̸̡̧̨̧̗͇͈̹̙͈̞͉͚͔̮͖̼̯̗̹͚̤̹͔̣̞̦͚̫͔̠̩̭͕͖̫͕͈͓̘̳̮̤͇͚̅́̌̓̍̏̊̓̓̽̎̎̀̿̍͑͋͌̃̓̚̚ͅM̶̧̨̨̛̦̝̖̜̳̪̜͈̯͊̊̃̉͊̽̏͌̎̐̓̈́͛̑͊͌̈́̆̇̃̾͒̽̈́̉͋̈̓̈́̾̇͐͆̎̀͗̌̕̚͘̚͜͝͠͠͝E̸̡̢̡̡͈̮͉͔͈̜͓͕̫̮̞͓͉̝͚̘͉̺̜̰̮̤̱̮̠̩̺̲̻̩̣̰̗̖̫̩̫̲͍͂͊̄͆̅͒͋̊̎͌͑̑̑͜͜͜͜͠͝_ _W̷̢̧̧̛̪͈͖̘̠̦̮̩̯͖̗̯͕̥̪̜̩̲̼͚̥̭̦̠̱̤̖̗̘̗̺̦̙̜͓̠͈̜̬̗̣̩̞̼͚̝͍̰̳̻̘̗̯͍̠̲̿͋̾͐͊̄̇͑͊̂̆̕͜͠͝Ȩ̵̛̣̘̲̳͍̫̫̩͍̗͌̍̍̓̾̔͑̐̿̈́̍̈͐̈́̂͊͋̋̔͆̔̆̈̂̐̍̌̌͊̂͂́̎̿͆͋̔̃͐̾̒̆̔̾͊̑̒̔̂̾̅͆̆̈́̉̈́͑̍̈́̊̽̚̕̕̚͘͝͠͠͝͝ͅL̴̨̢̢̝̟͇͍͉̰̎̋̌͛̄̏͆̅̉̃̂̕͜͝C̸̡̧̡̡̧̢̧̨̯̜̤̤̬͍͖̹̮̹̜̳̘͇̩̺̝͕̼̠̲̘̙̯͎̟͍̗͓̗̤̞̰͈̗̯͉̹̙̘͉͙̦̥̼̝͖͍͗́̂̌͑̒̍̓́̎̾͋̒͌̽͊̇͒̀̍̏͗̏̎͊̈̅͗̒̈́͑̎̂̑̾͂̽̎̏̽̌̋̄́̍̽̈́̽͂́̑̀̉͋̽̿̐̈́̄͘̚͘͘̚̚͜͜͜͜͝͝͝͝ͅO̵̧̡̢̡̢̨̢̯͓͔̻̞̺̟̼̖̙̤̝̪͔͚̳͉̗͈͇̗͓͇̮̙̫̮̖̤̤͚̯̰͓̯̦̯̳͚͎̝͔͕̟͚͎͓̼̟̲̲̪͎̲̳̹̥̻͚̹̻̪͚̮̍̈́͂̾͊́̇̄̀̍̈́͛̓̽̃̇̇̏̄͌͐͑̆͘͜͝͠͠M̴͈͎̓Ȩ̴͉̫̖͍̭̻̭̺̥̎́̈́̈́W̷̢̧̧̛̪͈͖̘̠̦̮̩̯͖̗̯͕̥̪̜̩̲̼͚̥̭̦̠̱̤̖̗̘̗̺̦̙̜͓̠͈̜̬̗̣̩̞̼͚̝͍̰̳̻̘̗̯͍̠̲̿͋̾͐͊̄̇͑͊̂̆̕͜͠͝Ȩ̵̛̣̘̲̳͍̫̫̩͍̗͌̍̍̓̾̔͑̐̿̈́̍̈͐̈́̂͊͋̋̔͆̔̆̈̂̐̍̌̌͊̂͂́̎̿͆͋̔̃͐̾̒̆̔̾͊̑̒̔̂̾̅͆̆̈́̉̈́͑̍̈́̊̽̚̕̕̚͘͝͠͠͝͝ͅL̴̨̢̢̝̟͇͍͉̰̎̋̌͛̄̏͆̅̉̃̂̕͜͝C̸̡̧̡̡̧̢̧̨̯̜̤̤̬͍͖̹̮̹̜̳̘͇̩̺̝͕̼̠̲̘̙̯͎̟͍̗͓̗̤̞̰͈̗̯͉̹̙̘͉͙̦̥̼̝͖͍͗́̂̌͑̒̍̓́̎̾͋̒͌̽͊̇͒̀̍̏͗̏̎͊̈̅͗̒̈́͑̎̂̑̾͂̽̎̏̽̌̋̄́̍̽̈́̽͂́̑̀̉͋̽̿̐̈́̄͘̚͘͘̚̚͜͜͜͜͝͝͝͝ͅO̵̧̡̢̡̢̨̢̯͓͔̻̞̺̟̼̖̙̤̝̪͔͚̳͉̗͈͇̗͓͇̮̙̫̮̖̤̤͚̯̰͓̯̦̯̳͚͎̝͔͕̟͚͎͓̼̟̲̲̪͎̲̳̹̥̻͚̹̻̪͚̮̍̈́͂̾͊́̇̄̀̍̈́͛̓̽̃̇̇̏̄͌͐͑̆͘͜͝͠͠M̴͈͎̓Ȩ̴͉̫̖͍̭̻̭̺̥̎́̈́̈́W̷̢̧̧̛̪͈͖̘̠̦̮̩̯͖̗̯͕̥̪̜̩̲̼͚̥̭̦̠̱̤̖̗̘̗̺̦̙̜͓̠͈̜̬̗̣̩̞̼͚̝͍̰̳̻̘̗̯͍̠̲̿͋̾͐͊̄̇͑͊̂̆̕͜͠͝Ȩ̵̛̣̘̲̳͍̫̫̩͍̗͌̍̍̓̾̔͑̐̿̈́̍̈͐̈́̂͊͋̋̔͆̔̆̈̂̐̍̌̌͊̂͂́̎̿͆͋̔̃͐̾̒̆̔̾͊̑̒̔̂̾̅͆̆̈́̉̈́͑̍̈́̊̽̚̕̕̚͘͝͠͠͝͝ͅL̴̨̢̢̝̟͇͍͉̰̎̋̌͛̄̏͆̅̉̃̂̕͜͝C̸̡̧̡̡̧̢̧̨̯̜̤̤̬͍͖̹̮̹̜̳̘͇̩̺̝͕̼̠̲̘̙̯͎̟͍̗͓̗̤̞̰͈̗̯͉̹̙̘͉͙̦̥̼̝͖͍͗́̂̌͑̒̍̓́̎̾͋̒͌̽͊̇͒̀̍̏͗̏̎͊̈̅͗̒̈́͑̎̂̑̾͂̽̎̏̽̌̋̄́̍̽̈́̽͂́̑̀̉͋̽̿̐̈́̄͘̚͘͘̚̚͜͜͜͜͝͝͝͝ͅO̵̧̡̢̡̢̨̢̯͓͔̻̞̺̟̼̖̙̤̝̪͔͚̳͉̗͈͇̗͓͇̮̙̫̮̖̤̤͚̯̰͓̯̦̯̳͚͎̝͔͕̟͚͎͓̼̟̲̲̪͎̲̳̹̥̻͚̹̻̪͚̮̍̈́͂̾͊́̇̄̀̍̈́͛̓̽̃̇̇̏̄͌͐͑̆͘͜͝͠͠M̴͈͎̓Ȩ̴͉̫̖͍̭̻̭̺̥̎́̈́̈́W̶̢̨̨̨̨̧̛̜̻̰̝̙͈̬̝͎̻͇̦̪̘͔̠̞̯̮̞͇̠̩̤͖̺̖͓̮̻̮̘̙̞̯̲͕̫̘̩̜̭͔̘͖̙̭͍͎̘̞̥̻̱͉̗̉̄̽͛̉́̊̓̆̿̇̿̎̇̅̈̒̄͂̍̈͒͒̃̒͌̈́̃͂̍̓̂̂̂͂̓̏͋̾͒̉̂͋̀͑̊̓̀̃̿̀͊͆͆̾̄̾̓̉͌̑̈͋͗͗͋͊̉̈̍͆̚͘̕̚͜͝͝͝͝È̷̢̨̢̡̨̡̨̨̡̨̢̡̡̢̡̧̛̩̥͍̬͍̠̦͍͓͚̲̰͕̭͍͖͕̼̦̬̺̮̥̩̼͔͔̲̜̟̭̠̤̩̹̘̝͈͓͓̜̜̪͍̪͎̟̗̟̗̮̻̞̩̖̯̞͍̳̪̹͔̖͚̜̜͈̭͕̤̹̫͕̬̺̲̰̲̗̬̙̼͚̗̝̮͕̟̩̞̞͎̥̥̲̭͔͍̞͙͍̱͉͓̣̲̯̱̹̫̻̼̪̜͈͎̙̹̰̞̹̹̜̭̠͚̮̺̞̖̤̗̥̯̠̤̮̮̞͖̖͓͚̣̘̣̖͍̟̘̱̱̣̮̥̈̍̎͛̓̒͊͆̾̈̈́̾̂̆̆̈̓̾̉̍̿͑͌̈́̄́̋̆͒͌̂̏̑̔̆̾̚̕̕̚͜͜͜͝ͅͅͅͅL̶̡̨̨̨̧̨̡̛̛̛̤͔͎͖͖̜̻͇̩̻̰̣̜̮̫̱̹̙̬͈̱̭̲̯̬͚̹̞̦̫͎̬̻̮̜͍͚̟̹͚̙̜̑̅̍̇̓̑͐̆̏̀̊̾̔̈́͛̈́̈́͂̀̿̑͆͋͛̉̃̎͌̈́͊͊̍̆̒̍͋̃͗̂̒̉̋͐̊͐̋́́̓̃͊͌͛̃̔̌̒̄̾̿̓̉͂̕̕̚͘̚͘̚̚͜͜͜͜͜͠͝͠͝͝͠͠ͅC̴̨̨̢̡̡̧̡̢̛̛̛̛̛̛̛̛̛͖͙̺̣̪̜͙͉̘͈̰͇̲͎̠̫͔̺̗̯͔̞̬̹͙̪̝̦͓͍̖̬̥̱̜̤̲̲̮̯̗̺͖͓̟̤̙̥̻͚̹̗͔͍̹̥̠̰̖̦̼̦͍̘͓̟̜͔̜̳̥̥͈͈̼̙͍̠͓̞͖̣̝̖̙͉̬̭̻͇̘͖͉͒̃̈̾̓͂́̈́̔̍͆̋̾͒̓̎̎͌̂̂̂̄͐̏̅̈́̏̃̏̓̾̔̒͑͗̅̄͑͑̒͗̆̂̈́͐̉̄̐̓͊͆̂̈͆̿͆̾̊̒̐͊̾̋̈́́́̎͗͆͌͒͐̀̏͌̂̒͂̇̑̊͂̓̒͋͂͌̔̒̒̇̌̓̄̉̒́̓͂͂͆͊͋͒̅͛͗́́̈́̈́̅̿͆͆̅̓͒̔̌͐͐̅̆̅̿̌̄̓̎̂̈͑̎͊̓̏̓̃͗̚̕̕͘̕̚̕̚̕̕͘̚͘̕͜͜͝͝͝͝͝͠͝ͅͅͅͅǪ̷̢̧̡̢̢̨̨̢̨̨̢̨̯̮̯̥̠̘͕͕̘̫͔͕̬̩̖̤͖͈͉͚̜̜̗̗͉̙͈̹̭͙̯̦̝̥̠̦̞̦̼̣̠̟͚͈͓̭͇̖̥͓̘͈̘̫̗̮̞̗̻͙̝̝̜̘͍̟̳͍̜̟̞͕̦̫̯̥̤̣̪̩̼͈͇̗̝̰͇̼̹̘̝̯͉͎͈̺͉͕̠̻̰̩̻̪̲̺̬̞͉̮̳̮͍̻̤̟̞̦͎̹̝̞̝̖̙̳̩͎̦̥̙̮͓̝̟̟̱͕̠̪̩̖͈͚̗̗̦̯̺̫̤̭͔̲̞̫̻͎̺̝̭̮̟͒̋̒̇̐̄̿̑̅͜͜͝ͅͅͅM̶̨̨̨̛̛̝̟̳̰͇̱̣̫̺̯̜͇̳͔̥͔̝̟͔̫͎͖̯̥̜͓͕̟̬̯̮͚̣̟̣͎̣̳̤̝̺̮̳̱̺̫̫͇͚͓͕̳̩͓̰̬͚̹̥̽̿̊̏͐͗̿̃͌̆̅͆̎̽͂̿͑̈́̈͗̍̒͐̈́̄̌̎̄͂̃̓̃̃͋̔̔̑̌̀͛̓̉͘͘̚̚͜͜͝͝͝͝ͅĚ̵̢̡̫͕̤͓͉͎̠͌̎̀̊͛̌̐͐̊͊̅̆̎̓͆̉̊͌̉͆̍̉̾̂̉̍͊̔̐̈͆͆̑́͊̕͘̕̚͜͜͝͝͝͠_

  
  


– flashes of the journal painting themselves in scratches and slashes, splatters, loops and shapes, screaming,  _ screaming _ , the cries of hundreds, of thousands, splitting his eardrums, warm with blood –

  
  
  
  
  


_ W̵̧̢̨̨̢̧̡̨̨̢̡̧̢̡̢̢̛̛̛̳̭̤͍̥̻̺̱̲̯͚̝̯͕̜͙̰̺̥̬͎̲͚̹͙̗̹͉̞̣̜̳͈̺̣̯͓̰̤̭͚̮̫̬̫͇̰̦͖̹̺̟͎̳̣̖͖͕͉̞͔̮͖̮̜̫̪͎͖͔͎̲͉͕̺̪̗̫̺͔͎͉̪͍̻̯̙̱̼̤̬̰̥̹̳̞͍͚̜̘̜̜͉͕̱̙͙͈͉̪̭̲̖͓͎̙̖͖̗̼̳̩̰̗̝̣̥͓͖̱̣͔͕͈̖̫̲̘̤̪͕̰͚͙͍͚̣̞͍̼̞̩̯̗̩̣̻̝̲̬͖̹͇̠̥̹͎̭̤͉̪̭͇̘͚̞̭̫̫̞̠̘̥̻͕̭̮̮̥̗̣̲̣͈̮̣͖̹͈̘̲͔̌̊͂̉̇̔̾͋̂̅̃̌͆̊̓̋͗̅͋̌̌̓̇̾̎̓͂̾͂̈́̂̽̑͂̈́̿̀͑̾́̈́̏͂̽̍̊̂̓͒͌̆̈́̃̈̈́͆̈̽̓̅͂̿̆̏̀̎͊͛̃̐̉̒̋̅̌͊̇̔̽̾̌̈́̍͂͂̋̎́̓̔̍̄̽̄̽̋͒̓̊́͐̔̌̈́̏̽́͛̆̇́̑͂̈́̓͋̓̂͆̂̑̔̈́̓̎͒͗̆̎͒͆͗̃̈́̊̎͋͂̒̔͊̋͌̏̉̂̄͆̆́̊̎̉̈̂͑̌̊̋̑͆̋̈́̓̉̐̿̂̊̃̂͌͐́̾̀̇̏͌͋̍̌͌̓̕̚̕̕̕͘͘̚̕͜͜͜͠͝͠͠͠͠͝͝͠͝ͅͅͅͅͅͅȨ̵̛̛̛̛̛̛̛͓̞̲̲̩͔̥͇̠̯̹͍̺̼͛͑͑̽̇̈͒̿̑̑̓̆̈́͛̌͋̀͆̊̏̒̌͊̈͆͛̽̉̒̌̉̉̓̇̾͑͌͐̉̋͊̋̂̋̋̌̿̆͗̈́̓̈́́̈́͐͒̉̑͂̌̓̍̌͂̈́͂̄̄̂͊́̆̓̑̆̃̎̌̀̉̽͆̅̅̌͂̒̈̆̆̅̃͒̎̐̋̌͆͛̾̏̒̔͗̀̏̔͑̓̒̊̒͛͑̔̑͋̿͗͑̌̅́͆͋̄̃̈́̎̉̔̏̀̒̅̀̉̽͐̒̍͒̈́̅̏̉̓̓̈́̀͊̽̒̒͋̏͛̓̓̒͗̒̆͆̀̌͆̿͑̄͊͆̄͐̈́̈́͊̋̈́͐̎͒̂̀̂͊̽͌̎́̉͆̀̽͌͂͋̀̔͗̄̆͊̎̓͗͑̊̚̚͘͘̚̕͘͘̕̕͘̕͘͘̚̕̚͘͘̚̕̚̕̕̚͜͜͝͝͝͝͝͝͝͠͠͠͠͝͝͝͠͝͝͝͝͝͝͝͝L̵̢̡̧̧̧̢̧̡̢̧̢̧̡̢̡̨̡̛̛̛̖̞̦̤̥̱͔͇̥̫̺̮͔͚͖̥̣̦̥̰̙͉̤̱͉̬͚̲̳̠͇̹̘̹̰̣̹̙͍̘̩̲͔̥̭̳͈̫̮̪̖̗̮͉̳͉̺̫̻̟̣̜̦̲̯͔̥̹̥̘̗̮̼̖̗̤̗̜͎̳̝̩̺͉͇̰̖͈̰̞̬̮̩̝̭̩̩̺͙̳͓̩̣͕͈͕̜̺̥̮͓͈̙̠͖̩͓̬̳͚̫͇͙̤̻̮͖̳̝̼̯̟̬̝͉̰̳̻̮̫̦̳̹̙̹̫̻̟̲̞̮̙̣̘̻̝͚̻̺͇̖̑̀͊̈́̈́͂̓͗̈́̊̐͂̂̑̃̐̀̔̑͛̓͆͋̓͊́̇̎̃̅̑̑̀̈̿̊͗̌̏̀̎̐̑̑̂͑́̐͑͑̀̆͆̀̉̎̈́̌͆̑̈́̈́̇̅͒̆̄͛̇͆̎̆̈́͗̆̽̉͆̊́̀͑̈́̅̂̈̈́͛̅̂́̾̈́̈̆̚͘̚̕̚͘͘̚̕͘͜͜͜͜͜͝͝͝͝͝͝͝ͅͅͅC̷̢̢̨̡̢̨̨̧̧̨̧̢̢̢̢̡̢̨̡̧̛̛̛̛̛͖̖͔͉̤͚͓̘̩̖͚̭̯̺͍̰͔̤̩̗̯̮̰̳̦̤̳͕̺̩͉̹͚̳̯̱̞͕̱̰̺̮̬̫͔̤̲͓̼̗̘̼̻̣͔̟̼̣͍͖̤̩̫̜͓̥̝͚͉̳̯̭̜̫̰͚̬̮̯̹̲̪͈̮̠̩͔͓̦̠̝͕͙͇̻̤̯̠̞̱̹͉͍͓̰̯̤͙̯̜̤͖͚̻̖̝͇̗̩͇͕̺̜̼͚̩̪̿̎̋̓͛̊̊͐̏̐̂͒͗̈̄̿̇̓̅̓͒̏͂̑̈́̿̋̋͂͑͛͋͑͛̊̆̆̅̓͑̓̈́̊͆̂̎̈́͐̿̈́͒͋̎̉̾̽͂͌͌͊̀̂̋̍̾͊́̈́̏̐͐͐́͌̔͒̒̏̆̐͋̀̒̈́̈́͌͌͌̏̉̓̆͛̅̈̄̏̒̿̇̑̓͛̓͌͊̄͗̉̽̏̒͌̋̈́́̓̐̒͂̅͊̒͋͑̓͑̋̎͛̋̔̿̈́̄̀̈́͛̂̇̑͗̓͂͊̀̓̄̽̾͗̑̉̾̚͘̚̚̕̚͘̕̚̕̕͜͜͜͜͜͠͠͠͝͝͝͝͝͠͝͝͠͠ͅͅͅƠ̵̡̡̢̧̨̡̨̢̧̧̧̧̧̛̛̛͕̳̮̙͎̞̭̦̼̲͖̥̗̳̪̙͔͙̩̲͎̭͙̦̱͈̫͔͕̞̯͇̩̖̘͍͚͇͎̝̻̼̮̟͔͙͖̱̞̘̫̰̝̘͎̦̦̙̼͎̫̖̝̮̼͇̲͔͈̗̜͍̹̣̥͚͙̼̬̞͍͈̰͎͇̱̭̳̗̯͇̼̣̫̫̞̠̹̲̱̩̠̰̝̳̖̙͚̝̥͈̥̗͕̥̰͙̠̭̻͖̭̦̼͔͇̈́͛̽͐̉̓̓̉͌̈́̓́̌̌̀̈̄̑́̉̄́̾̅̒̄̎̈́̒̃̍͊̊̆̈́̍̏͛̓̔̓͒̃͒͒̇͗̈́̑͑̽̏́̓̆̇̋̀͗̌͗̀̑̆̃̂̾̃̓͐͗̉́̒̋̎̑̂̌͋̅̔͗̀́͂̅̅̊̅̍̽͛͒̄͒̓̑̌̈͌͑̇̄͆̾̀̓̇̉̎͛͑̿̔͊̄́̎͛̅̈́̓̒͋͌̊͒͊̂͒̀̓̎̿̈́̾̽̌́͊͊͂̈̋̊͌̐̔̽̉͐̄̂̾͆̄̿̉̔̑̂̿̅̒́̈̆̉͗̊͆̋͋̄̄̓̓̅̃̒̕͘͘̚͘̕̕̕̚̕̕͘̕͘̚͘̚͘̕̕̕͘̕͜͜͜͜͝͝͝͠͠͝͝͝͠͠͝͝͝͠͝͝͝͝ͅͅM̵̧̨̢̢̛̛͕̙̮̜͎̝̪̰̞͙̻̲͈͈̳͓̩̼̬̠̲̤̳̦̳͓̰̜̘̻̙̣̪̪͉̮̜̰͍̹̗͕̞̣̘̲͇̹̖̰͈̥̼̮̫͍̳̖̏̾̉̓̈́̈́̔̇̋͒̌̏̈́̅̄̄̈́̓͒̎͗̍̆́̏́͋̈́̿̒̔͂̇̆͂́̂́̓̍̂̀̔̓̆̄̎̂̒̓̅̇̎̈́̒̃͘͘͜͠͝ͅE̴̡̨̨̢̢̢̢̡̛̛̛̩͙͓̜͉̻̼͙̥̟͖̠̖͔̲̯̫̠̝̗̗̱̲̱̖̣̼̪͉̪̘̣̹͇͔̞̹͖̻̠̍̍͂͑̔̓͋̐̆͑̀̊̎̓̿͒̐̄̾̆̓̅̐̆̉̏͆͋̃͂̌̈̂̄͑͛̾̈́͊͆͑̾̂͂̉͊̊̾̾̂̊̍̌̄͋̋̐̽̄̈́͒̈́͆̈́̓̌̔͆͛̒͊͛̑̈́̐̉̂͐̂̑͑̇̎́̽̀̂́͛̀̈́̔̃̽̇̔̑͛̂́̓̃̔͋͒̊̽̉̔͆̍͌̓̉͂́̾̏̏̈́̎̿́̀̅͌͗̓͆̂̄̓̏͑̓̾̽̓̾̓̂̄̋̚̕̚̚̕͘̕͘̕͘̕̕͘̕͘̚͜͜͜͝͠͝͠͝͝͠͝͝͝͠͝͠͠͝͠͠͠͝ _ _ ̡̪̪̯̯ _

__

  
  
  
  
  


And, like the snuffing of a candle, the eye winks out of existence. Simultaneously, Caleb is shot up, up out of the dark and into his body, flung like a stone in a slingshot from the confines of the dreamscape. Chest heaving, eyes wide, he tries and fails to catch his breath, his head spinning with vertigo.

Across from him, Beau stares back, wide eyed and gasping.

On her hand, a familiar red eye glows bright.

(nine)

Everything he does makes Caleb acutely aware of the mark on his shoulder now. Even after that early morning’s worth of discussion and experimentation ending in a collective shrug of helplessness, he cannot stop wondering about the possibilities to remove them. Not just for his sake, or Beau’s, but for Molly’s as well. If the eyes can be removed, if they can destroy the tome… Then Molly’s goals could be accomplished without having to face the Somnovem at all. He mostly ignored the Nein while they spent the much later morning in ever deeper discussion about what they should do, about what the eyes meant and the potential options open to them.

Only briefly, when Jester suggested asking Artagan to take them directly to Essek did he flinch – Molly  _ needs _ them – but Fjord stammered at the prospect, stalling her long enough for Caleb to formulate his thoughts.

“I don’t want to…lose them,” he had said then. The sentiment haunts his memory, even now, when whatever ruminations they have are little more than inane background noise to his much more fraught inner monologue.

The deliberation between whether or not a second reading of the book is needed to generate the appearance of another eye on their bodies weighs heavily on his thoughts as well. But night and sleep seem far away in the early light of dawn.

Beauregard doesn’t frown at him so much anymore. Having shared the experience, even only knowing it to be so in retrospect, has softened her ire at him, one thing for which he is grateful. Their bond is one he’s held dear for many months now and to have had it so strained over this…

But he cannot forget that for Beau, it’s more raw than for any of the rest of them, save perhaps Yasha.

He’d died for  _ her _ , after all.

Part of Caleb wonders what she sees when she looks at Molly. If that’s the moment emblazoned on her mind forever. If it always will be, softly, subtly superimposed over every interaction she ever has with him, even when she comes into the knowledge that it really  _ is _ him. If every time she talks about him, talks to him, looks at him, her interactions are coloured by the intense emotional build up of that one, inescapable truth.

He died for her, and circumstances have led to…to… _ this _ .

When they walk into the dining hall for breakfast, the Tomb Takers are already halfway through their meals.

Molly looks up and a shudder runs down Caleb’s spine. Between them, something charges, like lightning; static and ozone and smoke.

“Everyone sleep well?”

All sound, all movement, all time distills down to Molly’s casual query.

He knows. Somehow, just as they anticipated, he knows. Except the worry he hoped to find waiting for him within those unreadable eyes is utterly absent. Since when had Molly become that good of an actor?

Perturbed, Caleb fixates on that instead of the warm presence seared seamlessly on his shoulder.

“Did you sleep okay?”

Mollymauk’s tail twitches at Yasha’s question. Caleb notes it instantly, watches him carefully as Jester prattles on about kitty dreams (and she’s not wrong about that.) to see if anything else gives him away. But save for the flick-swish of his tail, Molly is disarmingly still.

“I had some dreams. Not too bad,” he answers in a roundabout manner, avoiding the real question altogether. Pointedly, he avoids Caleb’s eyes.

Is he just unhappy from the night before? Feeling betrayed? Worried about the fact that two of his friends now bear the same marks that have so cursed him in all his lives? Or had Molly been in the dream, too? Seen and heard things that carve wickedly at the very soul?

Biting his lip, Caleb looks down at his food. No point in dwelling on it now. They’ll talk later. This time, he’ll make sure of it. The rest of the breakfast is as tense as ever, though it contains almost no discussion by comparison to previous shared meals. Everyone must feel it. Maybe it’s the fact that they’re a day, day and a half away. Maybe it’s because of the dream. Maybe it’s because of the discussions that they’ve been having without regard to the fact that the Tomb Takers are listening. One way or another, they eat and leave with little aplomb.

The first five hours of travel leave a lot to be desired. The day is bright and clear, and bitterly cold for it. Caleb holds his hands under his armpits for extra warmth through his mittens, but whenever he has to fix his scarf, wrapping it more securely around his mouth and nose, the tips of his fingers start to go numb again. Really, there’s no winning.

Molly stays far ahead. Keeping up appearances, Caleb supposes, even though he has the nagging sense that that’s not the only reason.

The eye on his upper arm burns.

But Caleb is ripped from his ruminations when a pack of wolves, yipping and whuffling in terror rushes across their path several hundred yards in the distance. An omen if ever there was one.

It’s Caduceus who catches it first, rushing up to Molly and tapping his shoulder. “Look!”

All follow suit. There, far in the distance, winking like starlight and pearls, is a dragon.

But not just  _ any _ dragon.

With terrible recognition, Caleb makes the jump.

It’s Gelidon. The Nightmare in Ivory.

Dry, almost more annoyed than anything else, Molly stares into that far flung distance. “You have  _ got _ to be kidding me.”

In a frantic crush of bodies, they trample through the powder towards a snowbank, scrambling helter-skelter, heedless of whom they end up beside. Up against the threat of a dragon, it seems that the prevailing thought is unity, rather than division. Though not purposeful, Caleb ends up beside Molly, stuffed down in the snow, noses and eyes just peeking out blearily through the melting flakes.

There’s no time, no opportunity to seize the moment for a meaningful exchange of expressions. What had been just a sparkling pinprick in the distance has clearly grown much closer. The beating of her wings thrumming through the air is a sound Caleb will never forget; his heart mirrors it with increasing urgency. With a power more incredible than anything he has ever known, the wind generated by Gelidon’s flight sends swirls of loose top snow spinning in sparkling pinwheels above their heads.

“ _ I CAN SMELL YOU.” _ Her growl sends reverberating shudders down Caleb’s spine. The ground physically shakes. Last time, they had the dome. Last time, they had just barely scraped by. Last time, he’d nearly shat himself, seeing her maw as it bit down around the impenetrable dome. Some things, logic could not overpower. That memory is one of them. “ _ I TOLD YOU I HAD YOUR SCENT.” _

Then, a rough thud falls and slices through the snow, sending a shower of flakes into the air in a wave.

Her tail, Caleb realizes. It’s her tail. Wicked and strong and thicker around than the trunk of a tree. At the right angle, one powerful swipe could be enough to snap their necks.

She’s searching for them.

In the middle of his fifth rapid-fire brainstormed – and failed – scenario, there’s movement from within the group and abruptly, Fjord rockets up and out of the snowbank into the air and off several tens of feet in the distance, not far behind is Veth, and soon, one by one they’re all up and out, repositioning themselves for the inevitability of the fight.

Caleb, for his part, uses his new boots to take off into the far distance where he’s most useful and least distracting. Just as he makes it as far as he can go, he hears Yasha’s battle cry ring out and the adrenaline spikes again though his legs tremble, muscles exhausted by the arcane enhancement to his abilities. In his ears, his heard pounds thick and heavy and quick. There’s a quick flash of purple light and suddenly the shapes that he recognized as Beau and Jester are gone, reappearing on the back of the dragon. From the empty space above Gelidon’s back, Beau comes careening through the air, her staff held over her head for a strike.

The battle is begun.

With two powerful swipes, Gelidon beats her wings, lifting around her a mist of snow, clouding Caleb’s vision. In the half a second it takes for him to blink away radiating cloud of white powder, the massive creature has already struck at Yasha, before flinging her claws back to grasp at the two hapless individuals clinging to her back.

For a creature so large, she certainly moves fast. Caleb hardly has a moment to blink before it’s lifting off the ground, only for Yasha to strike back at her again, clearly a decisive hit from the way the creature bellows.

Over the ringing in his eardrums, Caleb hears a voice that sounds suspiciously like Molly’s, projected loudly over the battlefield.

"You could've mentioned that you were being chased by a dragon.”

If Caleb thought he was afraid before, terror suddenly grips his heart with icy talons. Just as before, there’s no room for logic in fear. The memory of Vess DeRogna bleeding from her eyes, screaming, dying in seconds (which he’d been certain he could never forget, especially not with the quality of his memory) is but a distant haze to the irrational recollection of Mollymauk run through with Lorenzo’s terrible glaive, glinting cold in the light of Caleb’s flaming hands as crimson spread through the light white dusting that gilded the Glory Run Road.

Achingly familiar, Molly pulls the two black blades from their sheaths, carving one up and across his chest as he does so, rending the fabric of his shirt so that the blade lights up a bright, shimmering silver. All around him the other Tomb Takers also join the fray.

Caleb shoves his hand in his pocket, searching for spell components, when he sees that predominantly purple figure move with unprecedented – almost alarming – alacrity, vaulting forward off a jutting stone in the tundra and disappearing into the snow only to pop back up and swing twice in quick succession at Gelidon’s massive underbelly. Her roar is indicator enough of his very direct hit.

Spells flash and blink through the air, the glint of blades touched with magic lend sickly, unsettling glows to the scene, and Caleb, fingers latching onto the phial of molasses, has scant seconds to shut his eyes against the bright, imposing wall of flame that tornados away from where Cree and Caduceus stand.

But no matter. With purpose, he slicks the sticky substance through his hand, incanting the spell with practiced familiarity, only it takes no hold. Again, he fumbles with the phial, but in retaliation to the swarming mass of individuals around her, Gelidon beats her wings. Too far away to make a difference for his balance, but it obscures the battle once again, and thus Caleb’s ability to make a direct shot. In moments, she’s rising up from above the cloud of white, her graceful neck, her gaping, horrific maw. Something must strike her, though Caleb cannot see who and what, because she drops back, the snow puffing up around her haunches where the rest has finally drifted back to the ground and rears back, her throat pulsing a frozen blue before she unleashes her wintry breath over her opponents.

_ "LIKE GNATS. COMING OUT OF EVERYWHERE!” _ Finally successful, she rises back up into the sky, hovering a safe distance from the melee attackers.

The scene is poignant. Like a painting, almost, and Caleb, subconsciously, commits the almost mystifying scene to memory. There, small by comparison, but standing with strength and purpose, is Molly, facing down the dragon, both scimitars held at the ready.

Whatever he says is muffled, and Caleb can’t be bothered to pay further attention as their quarry lifts and retreats a ways. Spells impact her consistently as she retreats, some gaining purchase, others ricocheting off of her diamond hard hide, while Beau still alternates between hanging on for dear life and pummeling the hell out of her neck.

Finally scraping enough molasses from the jar, Caleb presses out Slow again, the only thing he can think to attempt while simultaneously dealing no friendly fire. He winces as the spell glints off of her, leaving her utterly unperturbed. Moments later, she’s crying out again, that deep, guttural noise, her claws rending flesh as she reaches back for Beau, who is, as ever, the most inherently annoying. Like a doll, she’s bandied about in Gelidon’s grip before the dragon flies even further afield. Out of fear, Caleb rushes forward just as Molly sheathes his swords.

Shooting him a quizzical look, Caleb begs for answers while the others spring in the receding dragon’s direction to try and rescue Beau. But a voice catches Caleb’s hearing.

"- a good turn of fate. Let her have her, then."

Obviously, someone must fight the statement, because that is  _ Beauregard _ and they are the Mighty Nein and it had been Molly, once, long ago, who insisted that no one would be left behind, but Caleb doesn’t pay attention to whom. Two parts of him split and conflict.

Rationally, it makes sense for Molly to say this. It’s not out of line with all the other things he’s said to play his role, and the Nein are there to insist that someone go after her but it’s so cavalier, so blasé that Caleb cannot help but feel some sense of betrayal. A dragon should phase Molly more than this. Should have him wracked with worry that only Caleb and Caduceus can see shining through because they know to look for it.

Maybe he’s too far away to tell, is all.

That has to be it.

Anything else is too horrible to comprehend.

But there’s not more time for Caleb to waste in comprehension. Instead, he rushes forward, summoning his spectral cat’s paw to tug Beau to safety as the rest hurtle their last efforts at the fleeing dragon.

None of the Tomb Takers raise a finger to help, not that he expected they would, not after what Molly said. Still, it stings, though it feels less traitorous and more sad fact of reality in the moment. More than any of the rest of them, Caleb considers, he has the experience to understand what Molly is going through right now. To bend others into comfort so that power can be exerted over them. No wonder he’d been so uncomfortable with that newly revealed power.

When Gelidon is once more just a twinkling point on the horizon, they all regroup, Beau still covered in frozen blood, but less the worse for wear from Caduceus’ spells.

“We want to take a breather here for a little bit?” he asks the group, trying not to look too pointedly in Molly’s direction. It’s useless to hope that they’ll get an opportunity to talk before evening falls, but he can’t help hoping anyways. 

“I think so,” Fjord says. The edge to his voice is new though, and unlike Caleb, he spares the decorum and turns with a very accusatory glare at Molly. “I think it's important to ask a question, though. ‘Just let her have her’? You were just going to let the dragon go off with our friend? Is that the arrangement that we have?”

The rest too, have rounded on their would-be friend. Caleb winces, even though he’d expected no less.

Imperiously, almost taken aback, Molly retorts, "Our arrangement didn't necessarily involve having to save someone." It’s…different. Colder than earlier responses. But it’s also a deflection. Trying not to read too much into it, Caleb keeps his mouth shut, lets the moment play out.

“My goodness.” It’s with false surprise that Fjord responds, a mocking mirror of Molly’s own statement. “I seem to have been operating under the wrong impression.” With a sneer and a laugh, Fjord concedes. “Fair enough.”

Some part of Caleb – the fanciful, wishing part – thinks that that might just be the end of the conversation. But it’s not.

"Don't act like you aren't working towards our demise every night.” There’s such venom in Molly’s voice that Caleb startles.

Unconvincingly, Jester tries to backpedal. “What? What are you talking about?” she asks, but even to Caleb’s ears, she sounds about as shaky as the terms on which they stand with the Tomb Takers, if not, precisely, with Mollymauk. 

Molly gives a huff. "Look, we can play, and dance, and continue this masquerade as long as we want, but we've all got things to hide. I'm just being honest. No offense.” If any do take offence, they don’t share it. Every word of what he’s said is true, save the honest part, depending on one’s perspective. “I have no reason to like you, you've no reason to like me, either."

With a shrug, Beau relents. “Yeah, that's fair.” 

“Right, so?"

“Yes.” Though he doesn’t know why he concurs, it feels right. Something reminding Caleb that it’s his duty to Molly to play this role. More than ever, it feels hollow. 

"If it meant our survival or yours, I'm just going to make a decision in the moment. I hope you can respect that. Would you've done the same for me?”

_ Yes,  _ Caleb thinks. Would that that were another of Molly’s abilities.  _ Yes, a thousand times over. Even without knowing what I do, they would not let you die. Even if they think they could, I do not believe it. I never will. _

“I can.” Beau again. Perhaps it is the new trust Caleb had begged her for with his eyes. Maybe it’s something else, though that seems increasingly unlikely. “I guess it would've depended on the circumstance.”

“It's a little more complicated for us on our end,” says Caleb. “But you're right, at least on surface level, we are not friends.”  _ Lucien is not our friend. But you are only Lucien on the surface. You are Molly. You  _ are.

The hard, cold gleam in Molly’s eyes lessens, and the tension, while not gone, eases for the moment. “But we survived a fucking white dragon. Want ask you about that sometime. It's not often they seem to be… familiar."

“We make friends everywhere we go,” Jester says.

"I can tell. You are just a bunch of brightened stars in the sky." Maybe – hopefully – Molly is privately laughing. Maybe,  _ maybe _ , he’s remembering a troupe of bandits without pants standing next to the incinerated ashes of their former leader. 

They rest. There is something to be said for Molly’s assertion. They’d survived an ancient white dragon together. It’s something of a bonding experience, so the tenuous peace they’ve reached, what with the Nein’s plotting now out in the open, could be worse than it is. Caleb finds a seat as near to Molly as he dares, even though it comes to nothing save a few stolen, tentative exchanges of expression which Caleb finds frustratingly difficult to parse.

Something is different. Something is changed. And while the easy answer is that Molly is worried about the eyes – Caleb’s and Beau’s – that niggling in the back of Caleb’s head fears that the unremovable marks are the last thing on Mollymauk’s mind.

With how frightening their appearance, and the preceding dream, had been Caleb finds himself set only further on edge.

What could be worse than that?

_ Many things,  _ whispers his heart.  _ Things you don’t want to even think for fear of actualizing them by accident. _

Conversation has passed him by while he ruminated, but when he finally returns from that land of meticulous thought, Jester and Veth are seated rather cozily against one another and Fjord is blushing. He coughs once and turns to Molly.

“Not going to lie. The first time we fought an ancient white dragon, pretty big for us. How about you?”

If Molly could blink, such a still moment would have been the prime opportunity for it. But instead, there was only the barest pause. "That was the first time we've fought an ancient white dragon, correct?"

It puts Caleb mildly at ease to see him still asking the Tomb Takers, however unobtrusively, for clarification on the past.

The rest only look to one another before Otis replies. "Yeah, I've never, never really seen one up close or afar. Never seen one, never seen one."

Awkward, in only that charming way Fjord can manage, he nods, looking impressed. “Yep, handled it well, handled it well.”

A thump garners Caleb’s attention, followed by a sizzle. Zoran, putting out his flaming maul in the snow. "Didn't keep flying off, I would have fucking taken his head off, I would."

“It's very impressive.” More nodding from Fjord. Too genial to be sincere. “I can tell you, our friend, Yasha, was experiencing the same sort of frustration. Next time, we'll herd it towards you.”

“It’s frustrating.” For a moment, it looks as though Yasha’s statement has really landed with Zoran; though she’s not nearly as tall, their similar builds and fighting preferences are apparent in their conjunction and he seems, for the moment to genuinely commiserate.

"Yeah."

She sighed back in return. “You get  _ this close _ !”

"Yeah."

"See this? This is why it was good we worked together,” Molly butts in, leaving Caleb blinking uncomprehendingly. It’s an odd redirection, odd in more ways than one. What it means, he’s not sure. “I mean, if we'd gone on our own-“ He tilts his head, narrows his eyes like he’s thinking. It’s unreasonably innocent looking. So much like Molly.  _ What are you doing, my friend? _ “Actually, we would have probably not had a problem with the dragon, but if you'd gone on your own, that could have ended very differently. Well done."

“Thanks for not attacking us while she was also doing it!”

Ducking his head at Jester, Molly even smiles. "You know, thank you for the same."

Not too much later, they get up to leave. As per the usual, the Tomb Takers lead, with Molly up front. As soon as there is some distance, Fjord sidles up alongside Caleb. "Any complications during that encounter?"

“You mean new wrinkles?”

“Mm-hmm.”

_ None I can inform you about _ , he thinks. “Nothing that I can ascertain as of yet. A lot on our plates as it is.”

Between Gelidon, further futile attempts at removing the eyes and their frantically thrown together subterfuge to pay the trailing Dagen to take their note to Essek, the rest of their daylight hours pass listlessly. Eiselcross – when it’s not actively trying to kill them – is genuinely a rather boring place to spend hours walking through. Save for the rare outcropping of rock, the environment is uniform and bland. Nightfall is neither better nor worse. Instead of everything being white, everything is instead a variation of black and grey.

Finally, Molly turns around. “All right, we're real close. So the choice is either we push on, and I'd say about maybe two, three hours more we might make our destination, or if you're wishing for one more night of comfort, which isn't a bad thing either, we can take that, too."

They take what he offers, for which Caleb is glad until it becomes clear that, after the threats of the day, the Nein have no intention of returning to their individual rooms. One Sending to Dagen and two Communes of moderate to useless levels of success later, Caleb asks for his amber.

“Oh, fuck.” Fjord looks up at them all, frantic. “It’s-it’s gone. The whole bag is gone.”

Instantly, the room descends into chaos around him, but, like so many times over the past few days, Caleb’s mind is elsewhere.

He knows before Fjord summons them down to the entrance with his eldritch blasts that the Tomb Takers are long gone, and with them, Molly.

_ If he’s still Molly. _

Furiously, he stamps out the thought, refocuses on the cacophony of voices rising in pitch and urgency as they wade through a flood of ‘ideas’ that barely deserve to be called such, they’re so poorly thought through in the heat of the moment.

“Just take off after them.” Jester’s voice, shrill with worry, cuts through the din. “Take off after them!”

“Wait, bitte.” Even to his own ear’s Caleb’s voice sounds muted, distant. “I have to tell you something.” But they’re just talking, rapid fire, over him. Only Caduceus watches him with, sad, empathetic eyes. “Please! Listen to me!  _ Listen _ to me!”

Finally, the commotion stills and they turn, buzzing in place with their anxious energy, and look to him expectantly.

“I have something to tell you all. We cannot just go kill them – for  _ so _ many reasons, but none of them matter except this. I…It should never have been kept secret.” Pulled by the magnetic weight of his guilt, Caleb’s gaze rests on Beau. “We cannot kill them all.”

“Why not?” Beau asks, almost terrifyingly quiet and slow.

“Because.” If he digs his fingers any harder into the meat of his palms, he’ll draw blood. He squeezes his eyes shut to escape her, but even in his mind’s eye, Caleb sees Beau as clearly as ever, seething with an anger so strong it burns like acid. “Because if you kill them all, you will be making a grave mistake.”

“We don’t have time for-“

“He is  _ Molly! _ ” Caleb half sobs in anguish. With it, the fight flees. He only feels empty. Undone. Wretchedly, without his permission, he repeats himself, almost a moan. “He is Molly.” The confession explodes. In its concussive wake, there is initially silence. Sheer disbelief. And then, the yelling starts. It’s not just Beau, but her voice drowns out the rest of the discordant amalgam, eventually silencing them altogether.

“What the FUCK does that mean! What the FUCKING HELL, CALEB, I SWEAR-“

“He was always Molly. From the beginning.” Why had Molly ever wanted it secret again? For the life of him, in that terrible, horrible moment, Caleb cannot remember. He should have refused, should have told them all right away. Should have taken Molly and the Nein and whisked them all back to Nicodranas. Safe and warm and together without lies and deceit to bar them apart. “He begged me to believe him.”

“Oh, is that so?” Beau shakes her head. Tears bead at the corners of her eyes. “And what the  _ fuck _ could he have said that made you believe him? Because Molly? He wouldn’t have run out on us. Molly wouldn’t have fucked us over, or decided to leave me to die out there.”

“Beauregard, you do not understand, he was-“

“I trusted you, Caleb!” Contorted with grief – for that’s what it is. Not anger, not fury. Grief. – Beau’s face is streaked with silent streams of tears. Though her words are worse than any pain he has ever endured, her tears are more painful yet. “When we talked about committing to this…I looked to you and you gave the all clear.” She gestures around her. At Fjord, his waist empty of the bag of holding. At the open door and the footprints rapidly disappearing beneath the snow. “This look like it’s all clear to you? Or is the definition of that different in Zemnian, because right now, I don’t know what to fucking think. I don’t want to even fucking  _ look _ at you.”

“He  _ was _ Molly. He was not lying. I don’t what happened in the past two days, but he  _ was _ I swear it, whether you believe me or not.” When she goes to open her mouth, Caduceus places a gentle hand on her shoulder. Irritated, she shrugs it off, but lets him finish anyways. “I swear to you, Beauregard, like I swore to him that he would find himself in Yasha’s embrace by the end of this. You did not see him; you did not see his distress. He begged me to help. To be his lifeline, but he refused to leave. He spent almost two months alone with the Tomb Takers. He was Molly, but he wasn’t unaltered. It was the only way, he said, to free himself. To see it through, to stop the Somnovem. For two months he played the Tomb Takers! Played Lucien’s role! There was no faking the emotions on his face when he came to me that night. He was so desperate, so sad… I never thought-“ The sentence ending in a strangle as the emotion wells up like a wave inside him, threatening to drown.

In disgust, Beau shakes her head. “No, you didn’t. Did you? Think. You didn’t think. Playing a role like Lucien? For two months? I thought your memory was better than that. Molly was never that good of an actor. And now we’re  _ fucking screwed _ and he’s going to unleash the Somnovem on the world.” The breath she exhales hits him like a slap. “All because you couldn’t resist a pretty face.”

“Beau!” Jester, face equally ruddy with crying stifles their friend’s tirade. “That wasn’t nice.”

Shuddering, Caleb struggles to breathe, frantically tries to make his brain work, but nothing comes out.

“It’s Molly’s face, Beau. If he came to me, I would have trusted him too.” Yasha says quietly. “I lo- _ We _ love him. We see what we want to see.”

Beau’s lip twitches and she sniffs, roughly running the back of her hand over her eyes. “Doesn’t matter anymore. What matters down is that he’s out there with them on his way to Aeor. They have the last piece of the puzzle, and we’ve got squat. We’re fucked. Molly might be in there somewhere still. Maybe you saw what was there, maybe you just saw what you wanted to see. But we need to do something  _ now _ . And he’s not going to give up that threshold crest without a fight.”

“Maybe we try to talk first then?” Caduceus asks, his voice low, like he’s talking to a skittish animal.

“What if-“ Fjord begins. “What if we try to grab the bag, get it back, give us some leverage again. I don’t care what they say, they do need it, that much is apparent.” 

“We could fly there!” Jester turns to Caleb. “You and me, we do our thing! We can follow the tracks from the sky, make up for the lost time.”

A few more ideas are bandied about, but Caleb is too spent, physically and emotionally, to try his input again. Nothing he says will sway them, and there’s no time to waste arguing further over plans that grow weaker and weaker the longer it takes them to leave.

When they’ve finally settled on the plan, arranged who will be polymorphed, who will fly with who, what they will attempt when (if) they find the Tomb Takers and…Molly…Caleb heaves one final sigh. “Beauregard?” he asks, approaching her as privately as is possible. The look she gives him is expectant, if impatient. “Once, I asked you if you really thought, if it came to that, you could kill him. You could not answer me. Now, your resolve will be tested. I did not think you could do it then. I do not think you will do it now. Nor any of us. He  _ was _ Molly. And might still be. We don’t know what happened.”

“You keep telling yourself that, Caleb. I guess we’ll see when we get there.”

“Ja, I guess we will.”

Her hand on the doorway, half way out of the tower, she turns. “For the record? I hope you’re right. I hope to every god beyond the Divine Gate that you’re right. But if you’re not-”

She doesn’t finish the sentence, instead striding out into the night. Reluctantly, Caleb follows behind her.

As they swoop up behind in a v formation, Mollymauk stops. The only reason Caleb can see it happen as clearly as he does with his owl’s eyes, is because the eye on the back of his neck lights up through his hair, which is only loosely braided and mostly fallen out from the whipping winds.

An instant later, he’s turning when Caduceus drops the first spell, halting a few of them in their tracks, though not enough. And not the ones that really matter. Tyffial stops, rigid in place, along with Otis, but the other three are seemingly unaffected.

But that’s all Caleb has the chance to glean before Molly clicks his tongue disdainfully. With the lift of his hand, suddenly, Caleb is no longer an owl. Everything goes dark, only the gleam of Molly’s red eyes and the subtle grey tones of the snow pierce through it. The frigid crush of snow meets him upon the ground, the thud of Caduceus landing sounds behind him. Blindly, he scrounges in the night, fingers raw through his gloves as he claws at the snow in effort to get grip enough to right himself. The sounds of a scuffle – wordless, just the flapping of wings, grunts of effort, a low hiss – fill his ears all subtle over the shushing of the snow as it falls. How odd that it begins in silence. Not that Caleb had particularly expected it would start a certain way. It’s almost anti-climactic.

Until he hears more than sees the tell-tale  _ thwack _ of Beauregard’s staff in someone’s face.

In the silence, it resonates with a terrible fury.

In the silence, Caleb mourns the slim chance they had of making it out of this without a fight. But there’s nothing more to be done about it now. Shadowy, her form weaves between the Tomb Takers. There’s another crack, and another, then a wheeze, the shuffling of snow. In quick succession, several more hits land. It’s easy to visualize her more clearly, moving gracefully, fleetfooted and light, the angle of her hands more deadly than the force with which she lands her blows. Again and again, rapid fire, they land until suddenly – so suddenly – they stop.

“Were your beds not comfy enough?”

The only response is the sudden movement of Molly’s hand. It shoots out, almost as fast as Beau’s, grasping her tightly about the throat. From the dim light of the eye on his hand, Caleb can see as he lifts her up into the air, just a little. Without warning, there’s a flash, followed by a desperate gasp and an ongoing, burbling gurgle that’s undertoned with a keening whine. Black like ichor, blood streams out from Beau’s wide, bulging eyes, her ears, her nose, her open, gasping mouth

"Is this really how you want this to go?" Molly asks, his voice steady, colder than the frigid air that stifles Caleb’s lungs every time he takes a breath. It cuts clear through the night, ringing with warning. Almost  _ leag mear orm agus beidh daor ort _ , as the Fae would put it.  _ Touch me only at your peril. _

This, Caleb has seen before. They all have. Vess DeRogna, her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, all bleeding until she dropped like a ragdoll, lifeless, on the ruined flagged stone floor of the Aeorian ruin. He’d barely glanced at her then. But he cannot take his eyes off of Beau’s shadowed face now.

Molly had done that. Not Lucien.

_ Molly _ .

Agonized, Caleb bites his lip hard to stifle the sob that is trying to tear from him. Molly wouldn’t hurt Beau. He  _ wouldn’t. _ But then, Caleb never thought that Molly would decline to be whisked away from having to face his past in favour of confronting it.

(But then, Caleb never thought he would do the same. And yet, he had. Their very presence in the Frigid North is evidence enough that anyone can become  _ more _ than what they were.)

Casually, as Beau dangles in Molly’s – (Lucien’s?) — taloned grip, he moves his free hand to his hip, unsheathing a scimitar. From his angle, Caleb cannot see, but understands, as the blade lights up, shimmering and iridescent, that he has run it up the course of his own abdomen before slowly walking back, taking Beau with him.

Beside him, Caduceus struggles with his staff to standing. “I was hoping that you'd notice that we were trying to just bring back a sense of balance.” Once more, he sounds as though he’s speaking to a frightened fawn. But the individual before them is anything but. It’s futile, Caleb thinks. “That's a respectable move considering a violation of even tenuous trust.”

But Molly’s red gaze is cold. "Trust only goes so far. We got what we wanted."

In the faint distance, there’s a struggle and suddenly Otis appears in Caleb’s sightline. She’d gotten away, but Fjord and Jester are still nowhere to be seen, and conspicuously, Zoran stands without a satchel strapped to his back.

“Now who's taking things from whom?” Fjord’s voice drifts faintly from several hundred yards away. “I assume if you need the rest of this, we should all settle down, and discuss what our options are as we near the end of our journey, wouldn't you agree?”

As if peering into the distance, Molly’s eyes narrow. A beat passes as Caleb and everyone else wait with bated breath to see what he will do. His grip on Beau has not lessened. "Take it if you like!” he calls out finally. “There's more where that came from. We'll just kill your friends and take a little more time than we anticipated. Or, you can give it back and we’ll be on our way. Alone. Your choice."

_ Do it. Give it back, _ Caleb’s heart pounds.  _ We don’t have to fight. He’s giving us a chance. _

Time slows. The wind buffets at Molly’s heavy coat, sending it billowing around him. For all he’s holding their friend by the neck, the cause of her agonized moans, there’s something grotesquely alluring about the figure he cuts against the bleak, black sky, streaked with white as the snow turns sleet.

_ Say something, Widogast! If they will not, you must. _

He’s halfway to opening his mouth when Molly nods to Zoran who snarls, igniting his mace with a slice to his palm.

“Wai-“ he calls, but the wind catches it and it dies on his lips.

Too little, too late.

The newly flaming mace swings once missing and Beau struggles to make herself a harder target. But for the second, she’s not so lucky. With a sickening thunk, it slams home into Beau’s stomach. She flinches where she dangles. But Molly – Lucien – is still. Perfectly still, except for-

Out of nowhere, Yasha’s owl form glides like an arrow, unwaveringly true, at Beau, snatching her by the shoulders up and out of Molly’s grasp.

_ Molly _ , whose tail swished frantically when the blow hit. Molly, who had never been able to hide what he was feeling if his tail was on display.

_ Molly _ .

Fraught, Caleb struggles in an attempt to get to his feet, caught between action and the tumultuous avalanche of theories that cascade through his head as he looks at his friend, whose visage is contorted, teeth bared and gnashing like a wild animal.

_ Lucien. _

_ Molly _ .

_ Lucien _ .

_ Molly. _

He’s so caught up that he almost misses as Tyffial, her sword blazing with tendrils of black, oozing energy, steps towards with, menace in her eyes. Abruptly, the magic flickers out. With a grunt of anger, she slashes towards him anyways as he tries, fruitlessly, to scramble back from the reach of her blade.

By scant centimeters, he dodges the first, but that gleaming steel slices down at him, carving first into a leg and then across his torso. Pain, sharp and bright and familiar, blossoms, sparks, the adrenaline suddenly flooding him with energy enough to stand.

_ Get away! Get away! Run! _ Darting back, he catches the full wrath of her sword again, slashing into his shoulder, but he’s put some distance between them, nevertheless. Warm rivulets of blood cool quickly to a freezing bite. It’s almost a blessing, regardless of the danger, how quickly the extreme temperatures stop the bleeding. But cold is poisonous to the blood, he knows. Such frantic thoughts don’t scrape the surface, however. Everything is fight or flight. With enormous effort, he schools himself.

In the time it’s taken him to recover, he looks up to find that the battle is in full swing. Spells fly and then fizzle, weapons glint through the air, bathed in the wicked arcane firelight of Zoran’s cruel metal. For a flash of a second, Caleb watches as the tell tale pattern of light and colour flashes in the goliath’s face – one of Veth’s spells. But that’s not the most interesting thing. Not by half.

In the path of Molly’s eyeline, the hypnotic pattern is carved out, absent, as though it never were.

Recognition drops like a stone in Caleb’s stomach.

It’s not a spell, whatever it is that Molly’s doing. It’s  _ part of him _ .

With purpose, he strides towards Caduceus, arm outstretched. Caleb blanches.

“It's just business, friend.” The endearment falls hollowly into the air. “My apologies, but you didn't have to follow."

He doesn’t need to touch Caduceus, that much is clear, but even with the gore flowing from Caduceus’ face, Molly doesn’t stop moving forward until the hand lit with crimson light grasps around his throat.

Blearily, hazy with pain and cold, Caleb tries to blink the encroaching darkness from his eyes. But whatever passes between the two is lost to him. With a jarring movement, Caduceus rips himself back, but stays still. Though Caleb cannot see his face – only Molly’s inscrutable as it is – something must happen, well, rather, something must have been expected to happen which does not. For both Caduceus and Caleb are in Molly’s sightline, rendering them, effectively, useless.

The red eye on Molly’s chest glows more brightly than ever through the fluttering of his open shirt.

When Caduceus turns towards him to run, Molly lets him go.

Large, tender hands grab Caleb more roughly than is usually. Though he helps best he can, which is to say, not much, Caleb, for the most part, watches Molly, who watches them back. Just stands there, staring. Haggardly, Caduceus breaths in his ear, but Caleb is riveted, held taut by Molly’s scrutinizing stare.

For a moment, in the blizzard, Caleb thinks Molly almost looks torn. The minutiae of his expressions are dear to Caleb, intimate to the most acute degree, but in the next it’s gone, obscured by the snow. When Caleb gets the next sure glimpse, Molly’s attention is drawn elsewhere.

Yasha, no longer an owl, falls out of the sky. Crossbow bolts whiz and zing when they’re not carried off by the blustering winds. A blue owl flies in low, Fjord hopping from her back before magically stepping forward, though space, to stand right beside Mollymauk, attacking as he does, and being attacked in turn with blood magic the likes of which none of them have ever seen. At one point, light sears onto Fjord’s chest as he’s sliced. It burns and he howls, but the light remains.

“Caleb!” The cry comes from over him. Yasha, her white wings expanded, swoops down towards him and Caduceus, but her warm arms only scoop him up, leaving behind their friend, who nods at them as they go, weak, but stoic. With powerful swipes through the strong wind, Yasha rises above the battle, holding him aloft. The whip of her hair stings his cheek, his hood blown back. From their vantage point, the both watch and Beau vaults back into the frenzied heat in Caduceus’ direction. Though Yasha’s strong fingers tighten their grip on him, there is nothing she can do to help. With two quick cracks of her staff she bats Molly and Cree out the way, grabs Caduceus with careless desperation before hauling him as far as she’s able away from the fray. 

Relieved, Yasha touches down and they all shakily stand beside one another. Only Fjord remains, alone amongst the Tomb Takers. 

(Save for Molly.)

Without warning, though, their erstwhile friend’s attention is drawn away from the lone paladin and into empty space. He looks long and hard between nothing and Caleb and back again. Besides him, Veth is whispering subtle words, and it only takes the split second between the realization that Molly is distracted and Tyffial’s aborted attack on Caduceus for him to make up his mind. 

Cocoon in hand, Beauregard turns upon his will into a mammoth, adding yet another consideration into Molly’s apparent plans. 

But loud enough to be heard, he announces his intention clearly. “The wizard is  _ mine _ .”

He doesn't start towards Caleb, but the empty space, lunging with a flurry of attacks that Caleb feels psychosomatically. Molly,  _ Molly _ willingly slicing at him with those blackened blades. In fury, he snarls as they pass through thin air, the trick unveiled. But even though he’s not been sliced to ribbons at his friend’s hand, the fact remains that Molly had tried. 

Molly who had begged for Caleb to have hope. Molly who had clung to him, held him close, cried on his shoulder, pleaded for his assistance. Molly who had stood strong, deciding what needed doing, regardless of the effect it would have on his own comfort. 

Molly who has spent weeks and weeks mired within his worst nightmare. 

_ Molly _ would never have done it. 

_ Molly _ wouldn’t have hurt him. 

But Lucien would. 

The last fragile piece of Caleb’s heart shatters and breaks.

Veth tugs hard on his sleeve - “Cay!” she cries, pointing out into the black, where he can just about make out the divine glow of the Star Razor, Fjord’s hand held out in Cree’s direction. Cree who is moving her fingers in intricate designs, intent upon them. And there, just beyond, is Otis, snarling at Fjord. 

In quick succession, almost faster than mortal eyes can follow, four spells rip loose. Whatever Cree tried to cast dissipates as counterspell upon counterspell upon counterspell shatters the chain of magic headed towards them. 

The moment it's over, they sense the truth. They’ve come to the end of the road. Now or never, fight or flight. Caduceus vaults onto Beau’s back, simultaneous to the shimmer of divine warmth that signifies Melora’s blessing falling upon them as they take off at a sprint through the snow. 

There’s a moment when they almost lose him, eldritch energy from Otis’ hands striking Caduceus from her back, but Jester’s blue owl clasps him in cradling talons from the snow as they press forward once again. Somewhere along the line - it’s getting so hard to tell, he’s short of blood and exhausted and freezing - Fjord appears out of thin air beside them, wincing. Once more, Yasha lifts Caleb, as the Tomb Takers set off in pursuit. 

The trumpet of pain Beau lets out is the only indicator she’s been hit. With Yasha flying as she is, Caleb cannot see much. From ahead of them, Veth turns and a bolt rockets through the air into the group behind them. Struggling to twist in Yasha’s hold, he casts his gaze behind them on the field. 

Out of the snowy mist, Lucien’s red eyes glare. 

It’s a risk, but Caleb tries it anyway and shoots a spell in Otis’ direction, where they stand not too far behind Zoran’s flaming mace. It’s too close to Lucien’s eyeline and the spell fizzles into black smoke, thwarted. 

Beneath him, Beau trundles away, Fjord and Veth scooped up in her tusks as behind them, Lucien advances. 

“Boy you are some  _ lucky _ fuckers!” he calls out stalking forward, almost casually, like he isn’t worried that they’ll escape him. Which should be a good indication of what’s to come, but isn’t. 

This time, when Cree releases her spell, it catches them. Counterspell spirals out from Caleb’s palm half a second after Slow does hers, but Yasha’s powerful wings have borne them too far forward for it’s magic to prevent hers. Instantly, Jester and Beau begin to lag behind, the speed of their gaits reduced and Caleb’s heart, which he already is certain has been over exerting itself near to bursting for the past hour alone.

If they survive, Caleb promises silently in that moment, he will take Beauregard in his arms and hold her tight and apologize for his folly, for leading them so far astray.  _ If _ they survive.

Caduceus’ spectral guardian helps to slow the Tomb Takers’ rapid progress, but not nearly enough as is really necessary to mitigate their new hindrance. One by one they pass through its space. A few more spells and bolts shoot back and forth and then, the worst happens.

From above, roaring her displeasure, Gelidon reappears. Letting out a shaking gasp, Caleb wonders if it can get any worse. But from his peripherals, he sees the Tomb Takers stopping, taking cautious steps back as if to run away. Under her breath, Caleb can just hear Yasha venting, “ _ shit, shit, shit, shit, shit”  _ with nervous energy as she struggles between stalling and pushing forward even faster for as long as her wings will last.

With the last of his sanity, Caleb sends a fireball at the Tomb Takers. Just as ever before, it sparks and then drops into cinder, unable to actualize under Moll- under Lucien’s direct gaze. They’re doomed. They’re all doomed. They’re going to die, and maybe,  _ just maybe _ if he’d managed to sneak away from the group, to be with Molly those nights, maybe he could have-

"Sometimes you're all serious pieces of shit, you know that?" Lucien’s voice rings out with disdain. Then, abruptly, the phantom dragon in the night is gone.

_ Oh. Fjord. _ The thought is absent, so far away from reality as Caleb feels. He’s weightless, boneless, spent. There’s nothing left of any of them; if this is going to continue any further, Caleb thinks, it might well be better to simply up and die.

But the distance has already grown and the Tomb Takers –  Mollymauk – Lucien – simply stare them down as they flee for their lives, charging into the dark and shadow and bitter, freezing diagonal sheets of snow.

Bruised. Bloodied.

Beaten.

Cocooned in Yasha’s arms – where Molly  _ should _ be. Not him. – Caleb sobs quietly. On his cheeks, his tears freeze.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed all the hidden nines.

**Author's Note:**

> For the Widomauk Discord Winter Exchange, based on QueenWithABeeThrone’s prompt: 
> 
> AU where Molly is running a desperate con on the Tomb Takers while searching to the Mighty Nein. when he realizes someone is scrying on him, he decides to use whoever’s on the other end as his ticket out to find the M9. He doesn’t realize it’s Jester on the other end.


End file.
